Hawthorne's history of the United States : from the landing of Columbus to the signing of the peace protocol with Spain

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UNITED STATES

FROM THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS TO

THE SIGNING OF THE PEACE

PROTOCOL WITH SPAIN

BY

JULIAN HAWTHORNE

IN THREE VOLUMES

ILLUSTRATED

VOL. Ill

NEW YORK

PETER FENELON COLLIER

MDCCCXCV1M

C/

PUBLIC LIBRARY!

587973

ASTOR, LENOX AND 1

TIL0 N FOUNDATIONS.
R 19«3 L |

Copyright, 1898,

BY

PETER FENELON COLLIER,

CONTENTS OF VOLUME THREE

CHAPTER PAOH

XXVII. Extremes 769

XXVIII. Great Men and Small Deeds 798

XXIX. Mexico 833

XXX. The Last of the Whigs 864

XXXI. Kansas . . . . „ 885

XXXII. John Brown . 908

XXXIII. Bull Run 934

XXXIV. The Mississippi and the Potomac .... 964
XXXV. Through the Valley op Death .... 997

XXXVI. Past and Future 1029

SUPPLEMENT

War With Spain 1057

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME THREE

Jefferson Davis

ljeutenant-gen. winfd3ld scott, u.s.a

Major-Gen. John C. Fremont, U.S. A

Abraham Lincoln

Major-Gen. George B. McClellan, U.S.A

Ulysses S. Grant

Engagement of Union and Confederate Gunboats at Memphis, 1862

The Battle of Shdloh, April 7, 1862

Five Confederate Commanders

Five Union Generals

Farragut's Fleet Engaging the Batteries at Port Hudson, March,

1863

(iii)

iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Farragut's Fleet Engaging the Enemy, near New Orleans, April

26,1864

Farragut's Fleet Engaging Forts Jackson and St. Philip, April

24, 1862

Admiral David G. Farragut, U.S.N

Engagement of the "Monitor" and "Merrimac," March 9, 1862

Gen. Robert E. Lee, C.S.A

The Battle of Antietam, September 16 and 17, 1862 ....

Major-Gen. T. J. Jackson, C.S.A. . .

Siege of Vicksburg— Charging the Confederate Works, May 19,

1863 .

Union Attack on Fredricksburg, Va., November 12, 1862

Battle of Chattanooga— The Union Advance, November 25, 1863 .

Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 2, and 3, 1863

General W. T. Sherman

Major-Gen. John A. Logan, U.S. A

The Fight at Spottsylvania Court House, Va., May 10, 1864— The

Attack on the Confederate Left

"Sheridan's Ride "—Cedar Creek, Near Winchester, Va., October

19, 1864

Battle of Mobile Bay — Farragut's Fleet Engaging Fort Morgan,

August 5, 1864

Engagement of the "Hartford" and "Tennessee." Aug. 5, 1864 .
Bombardment of Fort Fisher, N. C, by Admiral Porter's Fleet,

December, 1864

Capture of Fort Fisher. N. C— The Assault, January, 1865 .

Battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864

Major-Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, U.S. A

Engagement of the " Kearsarge " and "Alabama," June 19, 1864 .
Destruction of the "Maine," February 15. 1898 ....
Shortening Sail on U. S. Cruiser "Lancaster," the Oldest Vessel

in the Spanish- American War

Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" in Action, Near Santiago. Ccba,

June, 1898 .

Admiral Sampson's Fleet Saluting at Grant's Tomb, Aug. 20, 1898

HAWTHORNE'S
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

VOLUME THREE

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 745

with outlawed fugitives from other tribes, prompted a retali-
ation, by which a boatload of forty persons were surprised
and massacred, the women being scalped and the children
murdered by having their brains dashed out against the side
of the boat. This called for active measures ; and Andrew
Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, was the man for the
work, and more than ready and able to perform it.

The Seminoles — whose name means wanderers — had no
fixed abode, but their fastness was in the Florida Ever-
glades; and they claimed that the cession of lands which
followed the Creek war was not binding. Of course their
position on the borders of American and Spanish territory,
and their retreat into the latter when attacked in force, made
war against them difficult, if one would avoid all possibility
of international complications ; but Jackson was the man of
all others who would decline to be bound by spider-web
scruples of this kind, when his fighting blood was up. It
was not for this reason that he had been selected by Monroe
for the work ; but because Monroe admired and trusted him,
and because he was the only soldier in the region able to
command an important expedition. Jackson had fretted
under the incubus of Spanish treachery, enmity, and in-
trigue, and saw plainly enough that they had no business,
from a common-sensible and humanitarian point of view, to
occupy a province which they ruled evilly when they ruled it
at all. Before he received his orders from the War Depart-
ment he wrote a letter to Monroe, in which he proposed that
leave should be given him, unofficially if necessary, to not
only chastise the Seminoles, but to wrest the Floridas from
Spain. This letter reached Monroe when he was ill; he
handed it to Calhoun, who reported it to have relation to
the proposed campaign ; and Monroe, after asking whether
Jackson's orders had been transmitted to him, and being
told they had, laid the letter aside unread and forgot about
it. But Jackson supposed that its contents were known to
the President, and tacitly approved by him ; and though his
U.S.— 32 ^ol. III.

746 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

instructions were explicit in warning him not to commit any
act which could be regarded as hostile to Spain, he con-
cluded that he would be safe in following his own plans.
His campaign was brief in the extreme, and very moderate
in point of bloodshed; but it came very near to involving
us in war with England, not to speak of Spain ; and its in-
fluence on the politics of the United States was unexpected
and curious. The Seminoles, upon Jackson's approach with
a relatively large army, fled to the Everglades, and were not
seen again ; but Jackson marched straight into Spanish ter-
ritory, and demanded and received the surrender of the
Spanish post of St. Marc's, and later of Pensacola, the
Spanish commanders protesting in vain, but attempting no
forcible resistance. But in addition to these irregularities,
the stern general executed a brace of British subjects whom
he captured, one of whom was a young English ex-officer
named Ambrister, who was convicted by court-martial of
having acted as a spy, and the other was an elderly trader
of Scotch birth who seemed to have been a plotter with the
Seminoles against America. Ambrister was shot, and Ar-
buthnot, the trader, was hanged; he died declaring that his
country would avenge his death; but in this prophecy he
was mistaken. The court-martial which condemned Am-
brister to be shot afterward modified its verdict to a whip-
ping and imprisonment; but Jackson restored the original
penalty, and it was carried out. Jackson then marched his
army back again, and disbanded it.

This was the Seminole War. The government, on learn-
ing the facts, disavowed the acts of its general, so far as
they transgressed international law; yet it protected him
so far as was possible ; and John Quincy Adams, Secretary
of State, who always stood Jackson's friend, in his dis-
patches to Spain and England, defended him with great
skill and ardor ; and so successfully that Spain, having her
posts returned to her, decided to say no more about the ir-
regularities, and went on with the negotiations for sale ; and

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 747

England, though Jackson was denounced as a murderer in
London, refused to go to war, preferring to disown the acts
of Ambrister and Arbuthnot, and to regard them as having
forfeited their allegiance before their execution.

But Clay took another view of the matter, and was in-
strumental in bringing on the Seminole debate in Congress,
the object being to pass a resolution condemning the general
for his acts—though England and Spain had both professed
themselves satisfied. Clay was sincere in his disapproval;
nevertheless he was undoubtedly moved to his opinion largely
by political considerations ; he thought Jackson could easily
be suppressed, and quite underrated his popularity in the
country. He made a lifelong enemy of Jackson, and he felt
the fatal effects of it later, when Jackson, contrary to all
calculation, came into power. He made an eloquent speech;
Calhoun and Adams spoke for Jackson ; and Congress gave
its verdict in favor of the latter. The common people made
the warrior their hero, and the division of the country into
two new parties was foreshadowed by the terms Jacksonites
and anti- Jacksonites, or Democrats and Whigs, which began
to be heard at this time. The democratic element in America
had indeed begun to be conscious of itself ; that lower class
of the population which resented more or less obviously the
pretensions of the wealthier classes to assume the reins of
government. Many of them were recent emigrants, who
had known only the despotic rule of European governments,
and thought that any government must be despotic, and
should be resisted and weakened, or if possible destroyed.
Allied with them was that great substratum of humble citi-
zens who had hardly thought of taking an active hand in
the conduct of affairs, but who saw in Jackson a man like
unto themselves, without known parentage or place of birth,
who had not the less made himself powerful and conspicuous
by his unaided talents and original force. Jackson was of
Scotch-Irish blood, and had the Celtic temperament well
developed ; in temper, principles and habits of thought he

748 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was thoroughly of the people; he believed in no friendship
that was not personal to himself, without regard to rights
or wrongs of policy ; he wore his heart upon his sleeve, was
easily nattered, was rude and headlong in speech, fiery in
temper, and implacable so long as his self-esteem was
touched. Yet he was less unable than he seemed to exer-
cise a certain dissimulation and shrewdness, and would en-
ter into any scheme that was not plainly dishonest to undo
an opponent. His outward bearing and aspect had however
been a good deal modified by success and fame, and he was
a much more possible person in polite society than he had
originally been. He had the Celtic chivalry toward women,
and was a favorite with them ; and his unquestionable genius
and force of character made him influential with men who
were far above him in education and social station. It was
right and inevitable that such a man should exist and come
to the front in our country; he represented much that is
vital in us, and will always have its due weight. The
memory of him can never be eradicated from among us;
Jacksonian democracy means as much to-day as it did eighty
years ago. He was markedly different xrom Jefferson, the
democrat of the aristocracy ; he was made of fewer elements,
and was of almost infinitely simpler structure ; but his effect
in the American world was hardly less pronounced. Just
such another individual can never appear again; but that
which he represented can never die out of our population ;
it disregards or tramples upon precedent and traditions, sees
the essential point, and grasps it, fears nothing, and aston-
ishes all orthodox and conventional folks ; while its success,
once it sets itself to gain an object, surpasses all anticipation
and record. It has many faults, but its virtues are immense ;
and for a time it is the death of humbug and pretense of all
kinds.

After his vindication, during the progress of which he
had been a violently interested attendant at Washington,
and had nearly got into several duels and affrays, he started

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 749

on a sort of triumphal tour of the country, and was received
with popular enthusiasm of the most unmistakable kind.
The patricians might slight him, but he had the masses with
him, and perceived no deficiency in his welcome; indeed,
those who held themselves aloof were very careful not to
do so in an openly offensive manner ; for it had become evi-
dent that Jackson was not a man to be insulted with impu-
nity. No one at that time, probably, had serious thoughts
of him as a presidential possibility; he might even have
laughed at the idea himself; for the elegance and austere
correctness of the Washingtonian tradition still hung about
the chief office of the government; but things were begin-
ning to move fast in America, and opinion was dividing and
expanding in a way that already made nothing seem quite
impossible.— Meanwhile, in 1819, the treaty ceding Florida
to the United States was signed, and the money, five million
dollars, paid to Spain ; and common opinion connected the
transaction with Jackson's campaign, and gave him the
credit of it. When a man has once begun to be the pop-
ular idol, whatever happens seems to make his pedestal a
little higher.

The internal affairs of the country had seemed to be in
a most favorable condition ; but the appearance was to some
extent deceptive, due to ignorance of the real causes which
were at work. There was a surplus in the treasury after
setting aside a certain amount for paying the interest and
an installment of the principal of the public debt. Some
taxes were repealed, rather prematurely. Commerce was
diminished by the great inrush of foreign commodities ; and
the policy of protecting infant industries, concerning which
we have heard so much ever since, already was under con-
sideration, Clay being prominent among its advocates. The
attempt to bring about a reciprocal repeal of discriminating
duties with Europe was not very successful. But if com-
merce was falling off, agriculture was doing well, and manu-
factures were showing an immense stimulus, especially in

750 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

New England, which found here a recompense for the de-
cline of her maritime prosperity. In the absence of strongly-
marked issues, the Republican party was subsiding as a dis-
tinct phenomenon, not because it had been defeated, but be-
cause its triumph had been so general. It had brought the
nation to a realization of itself and had cut it loose from
Europe; and now, almost every one being a Republican, the
time was at hand for them to subdivide into other things.
But what these were to be was still a secret of destiny.

The most remarkable event of 1817 was the beginning of
the Erie Canal, which had long been a pet project of De Witt
Clinton, and is due to his persistence and energy ; it was the
most wonderful enterprise of the kind yet undertaken, and
was of immense benefit in opening the country and creating
nourishing towns in the interior. Other national improve-
ments were withheld on account of the doubt as to how they
were to be carried out with due regard to the Constitution ;
and discussions on this point led, not to amendments, but to
stretching the letter of the Constitution in order to make it
cover cases which were assumed to accord with its spirit.
This was a dangerous precedent, for there was no line to be
drawn; but it prevailed for sixty years. — In Massachusetts
and in Connecticut changes of political conditions occurred,
tending to emancipate these states from the influence of the
old regime. The campaign in Connecticut was especially
picturesque, old John Cotton Smith being defeated after a
tremendous contest, with all the antiquated ways and opin-
ions which he stood for. In this fight, religious heretics
joined the Republicans, and swept the state.

Monroe's first term was remarkable for the increase in
colleges which took place during the four years; the greatest
novelty among them was a female college founded at Troy,
New York, by Mrs. Willard. Missionary and Bible Societies
had already been started; Lundy's anti-slavery association
had existed since 1815. A new departure of a different kind
was the first crossing of the Atlantic by a steam vessel, the

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 751

" Savannah," in the year 1819. Four new states were ad-
mitted to the Union from 1817 to 1820 inclusive: Mississippi,
Illinois, Alabama and Maine : but thereby hangs a tale. In
the meanwhile the flush of prosperity had been succeeded
by a couple of years of financial panic.

The proximate cause of this was the proceedings of the
United States Bank. It was discovered that this institution
had been mismanaged to such a degree that no one could
tell where the bottom of the defalcation would be found.
Many of the branches were joined in the trouble, especially
that in Baltimore ; a town which for some years had seemed
to rise on the top wave of financial success. The rumors
were followed by wholesale resignations of bank directors ;
and a Congressional committee was appointed to make a
thorough investigation. Spencer, an able young lawyer,
was put at the head of the committee, and he worked with
great industry, and without respect of consequences. His
report showed a vast mass of iniquities, the result in some
cases of ignorance, but mostly of deliberate dishonesty. The
evil spread over all the states, except those of New England,
which had maintained a specie basis. The question was,
whether to stop the bank, or to remodel it ; the latter course
was taken. Men of tried integrity and knowledge were put
at the head of the business, and their efforts presently cleared
up the situation, and showed that within a few years the
bank would be on its feet again. Langdon Cheves was
made president, and the chief director was Nicholas Biddle.
The investigation had created many bitter enmities ; but it
had served as a warning and an enlightenment to the com-
munity, and the mania for speculation, encouraged by the
paper system, was not likely to be soon repeated.

But the experience had sobered our ideas as to the solid-
ity of the basis of our welfare, and made the men in Con-
gress more solicitous as to the future. When consequently
the question as to the balance of power between the free and
the slave states began to come to the front, there was evi«

752 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

dence that it would lead to serious opposition of views. Up
to the time of the admission of the twenty-second state, the
equilibrium had been preserved ; eleven of them were slave,
eleven free. But now arose the question of the admission of
the vast territory then called Missouri, which covered most
of the Louisiana cession. It was proposed to carve out of it
a state extending from the meeting point of the Mississippi
and Missouri Kivers, southward to the present Arkansas.
The representatives from the slave states wished this to be
given over to slavery; but the Northern men, through Tall-
madge, a New Yorker, as their chief spokesman, opposed it
firmly; and when Cobb of Georgia declared that a "fire had
been kindled which all the waters of the ocean cannot put
out, and which only seas of blood can extinguish," Tall-
madge replied, "If civil war, which gentlemen so much
threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come. If blood
is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to
kindle, while I regret the necessity, I shall not hesitate to
contribute my own." The upshot of this first debate on
Missouri was, that the bill for admitting it was lost; but
the matter of course came up in the next session.

There had been no debate on slavery since 1808, when
the law prohibiting further importation of slaves from Africa
was put in force. This law had ostensibly been obeyed ; but,
with the large increase in our population, which now num-
bered over ten millions, there was room in the South for
more slaves than the natural increase of the negroes sup-
plied ; and consequently a good deal of surreptitious importa-
tion had been going on, much of it under the shelter of the
Spanish and Portuguese flags, which readily sold themselves
to this disgraceful device. But England had kept up strenu-
ous efforts to put down the traffic, and the American govern-
ment seconded her; and finally Spain and Portugal them-
selves had nominally joined with them. The more difficult
the trade became, the greater were its horrors, since the
cargoes were now crowded into almost impossible space, in

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 753

order to minimize risks, and captains did not hesitate to
throw the wretched creatures overboard when too closely
pursued. The traffic bred a band of scoundrels as black as
any that ever existed ; and the feeling against slavery among
the inhabitants of the states which had no slaves became cor-
respondingly strengthened; while the slaveholders were to
some extent driven to defend what they would otherwise
have joined in denouncing. Thus there was sure to be much
animosity in the struggle which could no longer be deferred :
and with a less solid-standing President than Monroe, might
have led the country further than it did.

The South had altered greatly, since 1776, in their atti-
tude toward slavery. They had at first regarded it as a
lamentable imposition derived from English tyranny, to be
got rid of at the first opportunity. But after living with it
and by it for forty years, they had insensibly grown to love
it. In the first place, it was the condition of their wealth ;
for it was thought impossible for white men to labor as slaves
did under a southern sun. No one, either South or North,
would be willing to beggar himself for the sake of a humani-
tarian sentiment; or if such an individual could be found,
certainly a state could not. Suggestions had from time to
time been made that there should be emancipation, with
national compensation; but it had never borne fruit. It
had also been attempted to get the blacks out of the coun-
try and settle them in some remote colony by themselves;
and it was a partial carrying-out of this scheme which crer
ated the African colony of Liberia; but it had no appreciable
effect in solving the slave problem. Gradual emancipation
had also failed; and the presence of free blacks in slave
states was found objectionable, and they were required to
go elsewhere under penalties ; nor was there lacking opposi-
tion to the settling of free blacks from the North in slave
states, though, as their freedom made them citizens, and the
Constitution allows a citizen to enjoy equal rights in every
state, this prohibition could not lawfully be enforced : — but as

754 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

a matter of fact, free blacks had no desire to settle in slave
states, so this point was theoretical only. Finally, a plan of
Jefferson's to let slavery die out by removing black children
from their parents, and taking them, say to San Domingo,
was never seriously contemplated.

But the most cogent circumstance that bound the South-
erners to slavery was the mode of life and the personal habits
and prejudices which it had engendered. The slaves had
inflicted slavery on their masters. The latter had insensibly
come to confound the idea of labor with that of servitude;
and thought it as derogatory for a white man to work with
his hands, as to have the overseer's whip laid across his
back. They conceive 1 that to be a gentleman one must
have slaves; they took pride in them as proofs of gentility;
and they acquired those overbearing and despotic manners
which are natural to men who exercise irresponsible power
over their fellow creatures; nor is it surprising that such
men should wear the same haughty bearing in their inter-
course with the free white men of the North, in Congress
and elsewhere. The fact that this conception of what be-
longs to a gentleman was based on a preposterous fallacy
did not render it less prevalent or emphatic, and on the other
hand, it did really create a lordly and charming society,
with customs and traditions which endeared it to itself in
an extreme and even passionate degree. It was an anach-
ronism, especially in America; and it grew out of a social
crime ; but, in a sense, no one of the slaveholding commu-
nity was to blame for it, and its darker side was hidden
from Southerners, who either could not or would not dis-
cern it. That they knew the weight of civilized opinion
condemned them, of course made them cling to their Pe-
culiar Institution more firmly; we all resent a profession
of superior virtue in our fellows.

Under these circumstances the second Missouri debate
began. Pinckney spoke in support of admitting slavery
into Missouri, and Rufus King opposed him. Pinckney—

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 755

who might be termed, in respect of artful finish of seem-
ingly extempore oratory, the Pinckney of perfection — spun
a glittering web of subtle sophistries; he was the ideal of
the elderly exquisite; his eloquence was of the school later
made famous by Edward Everett. King was his counter-
part; grave, simple, but poignant, and having wholly the
best of the argument. The American government had pur-
chased Missouri territory with the nation's money; it had
the right to dispose of it as it pleased; and yet the South
was denying it the liberty to decide what social institutions
it should establish there. If Pinckney' s contention were
true, then the Missourians might have licensed not slavery
only, but free-love, or thuggism. But logic does but seldom
decide matters of this kind ; circumstances may diminish the
weight of the most impenetrable argument. As a matter of
fact, Missouri was settled, or to be settled, by a population
derived from slave states, and desirous of keeping slaves;
and if the government used its Constitutional power to
defeat their wishes, there would probably be resistance and
revolt. The way to harmony was by compromise. It might
have been better, or as well, to have fought the quarrel out
then, instead of waiting forty years ; but the statesmen of
1820 did not think so.

An attempt was made to get the Missouri bill through by
tacking it on the bill for the admission of Maine, which was
to be made a state by severing it from Massachusetts; in
this way, Missouri would have been admitted without re-
strictions as to its constitution. But the scheme failed ; and
the compromise finally accepted was, that slavery, except in
Missouri, should be prohibited north of the line 36° 30'.
Clay's persuasive powers were ardently exerted for this end,
and he may claim such credit as attaches to bringing about
its acceptance. The debate became a loadstone to fashion,
and the halls of legislature were so filled with women that
John Randolph, on one occasion, true to his custom of im-
proving every chance for increasing his humorous noto-

756 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

riety, called attention to their presence, and declared that
they would better be at home at their knitting. But wo-
men would have their way in this country, both then and
since.

The Compromise put off the evil day, but only made its
final coming more certain. For to the south and west of us
there was a great expanse of territory under the nominal
dominion of Spain, which could not fail to be coveted by
Southerners as a field for the increase of their possessions and
power. The most obvious possible acquisition was the enor-
mous region called Texas, to which we had some shadow of
claim as being part of the Louisiana cession. But Monroe
perceived that were Texas admitted, either by cession or
conquest, it would precipitate the calamity which the Mis-
souri Compromise had postponed; the East could never
permit so large a weight to be thrown into the Southern
balance. He wished neither party to the controversy to
win an overwhelming triumph; as our possessions in the
northwest were augmented, it might become safe to enlarge
our boundaries in the southwest also; but there was time
enough for that. His decision was that of a wise and im-
partial statesman.

The new population now began to pour into Missouri, in
rather a defiant frame of mind. The constitution which
they framed contained two objectionable provisions : — That
the legislature should be forbidden to interfere with slavery ;
and that free negroes should be forbidden to settle in the
state. The latter article, being against the stipulation of
the Constitution of the United States, that a citizen could
live in any of the states, was made the ground of attack.
The joint resolution admitting Missouri had still to pass,
and gave the opening for debate. After much talk, another
compromise was devised; the clause excluding free blacks
was not to be construed as authorizing any law abridging
the rights of citizens. It was little better than a verbal
quibble; but it served the purpose of sparing the Missouri*

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 757

ans' pride ; while there was no real prospect that free blacks
would ever wish to make Missouri their home. In truth, all
concerned were glad to get out of the scrape on any decent
or plausible terms; and it was tacitly agreed that slavery
should nevermore be mentioned by either party. There was
worldly wisdom in the agreement ; but such things are never
final. If slavery were wrong, it could not be killed by ignor-
ing it. A man might as well expect to get rid of consump-
tion by schooling himself to take no notice of its ravages
in his lungs. — Randolph and a few of his followers were
irreconcilable ; but they were not strong enough to require
attention.

National credit was improving; but the need of strict
economy was felt, and such projects as coast defense and
exploration in the west were suspended. The appropriations
for army and navy were reduced. It was generally felt that
the administration had done well, and Monroe and Tompkins
were re-elected for a second term. Indeed, a safer or more
honorable and unselfish Executive it would be hard to find.
Monroe was the last of the Revolutionary presidential tim-
ber, and with him were to disappear also some of the best
qualities of our earlier rulers. His ideal of the true func-
tions of his office had grown higher as time went on, so that
he presented the rare spectacle of a politician ending his ca-
reer on a loftier plane than he began it on. One who knew
him well said of him that his soul "might be turned wrong
side outward without discovering a blemish." His successor
would be chosen on no party issue, for there no longer was
one in our politics ; but on grounds of personal power and
influence; and thus the way was open for underhand in-
trigue, which the make-up of the Seventeenth Congress
favored. There had never yet been a time when the aims
of the mass of men in public life had been more petty and
personal; and the transactions of Congress were trifling
and unimportant.

Nevertheless, there were men of parts among the Presi-

758 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

dential aspirants. Of these, John Quincy Adams, Calhoun,
Clay and Jackson were the most conspicuous; Crawford,
the self-seeking intriguer, was also a strong runner for the
goal, but was destined to disappointment, which he well de-
served. Another man who made vigorous efforts was De
"Witt Clinton ; but his chances were never equal to his convic-
tion of his political merits. Clay did not at this time make a
serious struggle ; he believed that his time would surely come
later. Calhoun was suddenly attacked by the Presidential
ambition, but he was young enough to wait. He was a singu-
lar person, of a certain profundity of mind, eloquent, fasci-
nating and weighty ; and his aims were, at the outset of his
career, broad and generous, and free from local bias. But it
is noticeable that though he charmed all, and his most inti-
mate friends spoke highly of his parts, yet he was not deeply
trusted ; there were hidden depths in him, which he never
unveiled. Ambition was his bane; and as time went on, it
ate into his heart, and put bitterness and strangeness where
there had been gentle and humane feelings. He had a noble
intellect, but his nature was less noble, and did not stand the
test of political life. He became the supporter of heresies
which did great harm to his country. Adams was far from
being a lovable man, but he was entirely trustworthy ; he had
not the great, hot heart of his father, but he was far more im-
partial and correct in the operations and ideas of his mind.
Dry, cold, repellent and pedagogic in manner, he made no
friends, though no one would deny him esteem and respect ;
he loved none, and none loved him. He was not a man to
win general popularity, and did not seem therefore a likely
candidate for the Presidency; but his honor and firmness,
and his great experience of public life in all its higher walks,
rendered him practically available, and in the compromise of
interests, and with the legislature to decide finally as be-
tween him and others, he might (as in fact he did) succeed.
Another circumstance in his favor was the fact that he was
a Northern man, and the North had a right to be represented

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 759

in the chair of supreme authority ; Virginia had contributed
more than her share. As for Jackson, he was, in a curious
way, a creature of accident and surprise, as well as a man of
strong and salient character. No calculation of probabilities
would have designated him as a possible candidate. But in
one way or another, he was continually in the public eye,
and in a manner that endeared him to the people. When
it was necessary to select a governor for the new realm of
the Floridas, Monroe, somewhat rashly, fixed upon Jack-
son. Jackson accepted the appointment, but with some
ill -humor; his health was not good, and he had been ir-
ritated, though without adequate cause, in the matter of
military promotion. Moreover, he was far from friendly
toward the Spaniards, and when he found some Spanish
officers still holding posts in the country, and indisposed to
surrender them except after the unrolling of much red tape,
his temper rose, and he acted with the arbitrary severity of
an Oriental sultan. He seized the unhappy incumbents,
threw them into prison, and appropriated the public docu-
ments in their charge; and he also arrested a judge who
issued a writ of habeas corpus. This was technically all
wrong; yet it was in harmony with the eternal fitness of
things, and pleased our people much more than it did the
officials who had to straighten the matter out. It is deli-
cious, occasionally, to see a strong, honest, right-feeling man
trample upon rules and customs, and going straight to his
point like a cannon ball. He soon resigned his appointment,
and went back to Tennessee, where his popularity was even
greater than before, and whence, in that era of half men
and timid measures, it spread over the country, not with-
out artful nursing by the crusty hero's friends. His name
was more than once connected with the Presidency, and
every one was surprised to see how seriously it was received,
and, in many quarters, with what enthusiasm. When the
proper moment arrived, he was nominated as a candidate —
Andrew Jackson, the Soldier, the Statesman, and the Hon-

76o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

est Man. The man of the crowd had got on horseback, and
would ride.

The most noticeable change in the aspect of the country
at this period was the advance in population and power of
the state of New York, and the decline of Virginia. New
York had now the largest population in the Union, and her
internal improvements, in the way of roads and other means
of communication, had developed her back counties to a sur-
prising degree. She was the great maritime center of the
country, and would soon be the second greatest in the world, .
and her political affairs were in competent and energetic
hands. In Virginia, on the other hand, there was no bright-
ness in the prospect, or comfort in the present; there was
nothing but the glory and pride of the past. Her great men
were no more, or were soon to pass away; the men of the
day were insignificant and vain. She was weighed down
with her slaves, who cost her almost as much as they were
worth, even upon a strictly utilitarian basis; her poor whites
were a useless encumbrance, and her planters were a whis-
ky-drinking, arrogant, degenerating class, though full of
charms and winning traits of a social kind which made their
generous hospitality delightful. But Virginia was already a
proof of the paralyzing effect upon human development of
the slave system, and she was totally lacking in the spirit
which prompts men to roll up their sleeves and work for
the common good. Her back counties were lapsing into the
dark ages, and, compared with New York or the Eastern
states, she was still in the last century.

The Erie Canal was not the only public improvement
which had been begun ; there was, among the most promi-
nent enterprises, the Cumberland Road. This was a high-
way extending westward through the Alleghanies, and was
designed to pass onward to the Mississippi, and finally to
reach the Pacific coast. It had been started as a national
work; but question had arisen whether such national works
were constitutional. The President, after studying the sub-

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 761

ject, arrived at the conclusion that they were not, and ac-
cordingly he vetoed the bill which had been seconded by
Clay and Adams, and opposed by Jackson. The veto, how-
ever, was directed rather against the principle than against
the small appropriation asked for; the road had been begun,
constitutionally or not, and should at least be kept in repair,
pending further inquiry into constitutional rights, or possi-
ble extensions thereof. The sober second thought of the
country finally justified the President's course.

The main incident of Monroe's second term was the
enunciation of what is called the Monroe doctrine. Eu-
rope, alarmed at the unsettled political outlook, caused by
the American and French Eevolutions, which had shaken
every throne, and jolted the crowns on royal brows, cast
about to stay the tide of freedom, and three of the great
Powers — France, Russia and Prussia — formed what is known
as the Holy Alliance. Spain, in a rare burst of impatience
with 'tyranny, had deposed Ferdinand ; France assembled an
army of a hundred thousand men, and restored him to his
throne. It was then determined by the Alliance to extin-
guish the new South and Central American Republics, and
make them appendages of European monarchies. England
disapproved this plan, not from any desire to promote repub-
lican institutions, but in her own interests; and Canning,
the English premier, proposed an Alliance to the United
States. Rush, the American minister in London, replied,
on the spur of the moment, that all necessary ends would
be answered if England would recognize the independence
of the South American governments ; but this Canning de-
clined to do. On the other hand, he would not interfere
with any action which America might take. Monroe ap-
proved of Rush's attitude, and consulted with Jefferson and
Madison as to what should be done. Jefferson replied, "The
question is the most momentous that has been offered to my
contemplation since that of Independence. That made us
a nation : this sets our compass and points the course which

762 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

we are to steer. And never could we embark under circum-
stances more auspicious. Our first and fundamental maxim
should be, never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe.
Our second, never to suffer Europe to meddle in cis- Atlantic
affairs. America, north and south, has a set of interests dis-
tinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly her own. She
should therefore have a system of her own, separate and
apart from those of Europe. While the last is laboring to
become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely
be to make our hemisphere that of freedom." His system
contemplated "keeping out of our land all foreign powers,
and never permitting those of Europe to intermeddle with
the affairs of our nations." And considering that England
avowed the principles of freedom, he thought that to accept
her moral support in this course would be to maintain, not
to depart from, the policy in question, and to make war im-
possible. Madison agreed with Jefferson, but suspected Can-
ning of some ulterior designs. Monroe, thus supported, wrote
his message, which immediately became and has remained
one of the most famous of our state papers. It stated that
America would consider any attempt on the part of the Holy
Alliance to extend their system to any portion of this hemi-
sphere as dangerous to our peace and safety; and that the
American continents, by the free and independent condition
which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not
to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any
European powers.

This was a momentous announcement. It would be his-
torically foolish to maintain that it was the creation of Mon-
roe's mind, or of that of Jefferson, or of any other individual.
It formulated the feeling that had been gradually growing
up throughout the Union. It was a statement of our con-
viction that the Americas had been set apart by Providence
as the home of free institutions, in which none of the old,
exhausted forms of government could be permitted to remain
or to enter. Monroe had the insight and the courage to be

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 763

the spokesman of this conviction. The warning against en-
tangling alliances which Washington had given was designed
as a safeguard against drifting into a position where, as a
return for services rendered us by some European power, we
would be constrained to allow it privileges which would com-
promise our political principles ; it did not, and could not,
prevent us from extending the American system, if oppor-
tunity offered, or circumstances demanded, to regions not
included within our continental boundaries as at present
described. America might incorporate Europe; but Eu-
rope must not invade America.

The message caused a sensation in Europe as well as
here; and the Holy Alliance relinquished all hope of carry-
ing out its designs on this hemisphere. The doctrine which
it embodied has been much discussed since then, but the
United States have never receded from their position ; and
the attempt of Maximilian to occupy the throne of Mexico
was the only example of an endeavor to thwart our will.
Such an experiment is not likely to be repeated. The mes-
sage was first read before the Eighteenth Congress, in De-
cember, 1823. The power of Spain had then been abolished
on the main; after seventy-five years, it is being extirpated
from the West India Islands, and even from the remote
Pacific.

The Eighteenth Congress contained Hayne, Van Buren,
and Webster, as new members, besides Clay and others who
had already made their reputation ; and it contrasted favor-
ably with the former one. In the debates on internal im-
provements, Clay and Webster drew toward each other; but
upon a protective tariff they were opposed, Clay taking the
protective side. Webster was of Federalist stock, but was
independent ; he as well as Clay supported a strong central
power in the government. In the Presidential campaign he
was against his fellow New Englander, Adams. He was
the head of the Congressional judicial committee, and fath-
ered the new Crimes Bill, which became the basis of our

764 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

criminal jurisprudence. His greatness was already begin-
ning to be apparent; and he had as yet done nothing to
engender enmities. He was a man who can hardly be de-
scribed save in superlatives, and the estimates of his char-
acter ring the changes on terms which sound extravagant,
but probably are the only ones fitted to convey a true idea
of him. Those who came under his personal influence while
he was at his best, exhaust the resources of language to ex-
press the impression he produced on them. He was a demi-
god in the first third of the century ; to his opponents, later,
he was a fallen archangel. Many called him the greatest
man that ever lived. The most recent views of him seem
tending to renew the eulogistic vein which prevailed at his
prime. He was a man of great intellectual powers, well
balanced, and thoroughly trained. His nature was rich and
deep, and of a largeness which made him without effort the
first man in every company. He was a man on a continen-
tal scale, but without diffuseness or waste; every faculty
was under the dominion of his will, and responsive to need.
He was both synthetic and analytic in the quality of his
mind; he grasped the whole, yet saw all the parts. He also
had the instinct of sublimity, which gives appreciation of
the loftiest and most general relations of things; so that
when he turned his head, the world seemed to turn with it;
and when he raised his arm, he seemed to signal to the stars,
His personal appearance — the fashion of his head and body
— were harmonious with this greatness of his mind and soul ;
so that there was no discordant note in the complete impres-
sion he made on the beholder. Mentally, he stood on a plane
so high that he could find little company ; but he was humane
and kind toward others, and willing to enter into friendly
relations with any who could meet him. But the trouble
with a man like Webster is, that he cannot form ordinary
relations with his fellows; and he cannot but be aware that
nature, in making him a king of men, has isolated him.
Webster could not but know his power — the effect his mere

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 765

presence wrought ; he knew what his voice and look could
do ; and he must have felt, as regarded the ordinary affairs
of lif e, like a giant in the domain of pigmies ; nothing was
made to his scale. He could not dwell with his fellows on
terms of equality ; he was obliged to adapt himself to them in
ways which involved some sacrifice of spontaneity. There
must be, in other words, a certain histrionic quality in this
man : not that he wished to act a part, but that he was forced
out of his real character despite himself. The lack of equals
with whom to associate drove him, in his fullest moments,
to commune with great ideas of government and compre-
hensive thoughts of human destiny ; at other times, he would
be indolent, like Hercules, with no labor to perform ; or would
try to diminish himself, as it were, to the caliber of his com-
panions, because the human strain in him yearned to meet
a mate, and would rather have inadequate fellowship than
be always lonely. And because that vast organization and
intelligence must have some object, some occupation, he ac-
cepted ambition, which first perhaps contemplated imper-
sonal issues, but insensibly was directed so as to confound
the aimer with the aim : he came to identify himself with
that which he pursued ; and he sought no less unworthy
a goal than the leadership of his country. But to gain that,
he must contend with the selfish ends of others, and thus
be led to do things which were unworthy of himself. And
after all, he was to be disappointed. But he was constant
through life to the great idea of a united America, and if,
at times, he persuaded himself that means were of less ac-
count than the purpose which employed them, it is but to
say that he was human.

There is nothing edifying in the story of the Presidential
campaign of this year. Crawford, as the regular candidate,
was at first the most prominent in the field; but the man in
that big carcass was too small to win the prize. He was
nominated by a Congressional caucus; but in the midst of
the struggle he was stricken with paralysis and threatened

766 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

with blindness ; and though this did not make him withdraw
his pretensions, it made the task of his supporters too hard.
Adams tried to induce Jackson to accept the second place
on his ticket ; but this shrewd move failed, for Jackson would
be second to no man. Calhoun showed political sagacity in
offering to accept the Vice- Presidency with Jackson as chief.
Clay tried to get Crawford to retire, and make over his
chances to him; but Crawford held on. Each state had
some favorite son to recommend; and it soon became evi-
dent that there would be no majority among the lead-
ers; the legislature would have to decide between them.
A national convention had not yet been thought practica-
ble. Jackson became constantly stronger ; the stars in their
courses seemed to fight for him ; and a letter of his which
was published by his enemies, in the hope of discrediting
him, redounded to his advantage; it was one of a series
which had been written to Monroe eight years before; and
Jackson published the whole batch, which happened to con-
tain numerous sentiments singularly pertinent to the present
crisis, and he was greatly strengthened in the popular esti-
mation thereby. He received more votes than any of the
other candidates; but the House chose Adams, with Cal-
houn as Vice-President. Jackson acquiesced with ostensible
grace, but in private he expressed the belief that he had been
betrayed by Clay ; he was ever prone to fancy that secret
enemies were combining against him.

The most agreeable event of the last year of Monroe's
administration —which had been, upon the whole, one of the
least faulty ever known — was the visit of Lafayette to Amer-
ica, after an absence of more than forty years. During this
interval he had seen many vicissitudes, but had always been
the same noble, simple, and devoted man that offered him-
self to our service in the first flush of his youth. In Europe,
as here, he had fought for liberty, and had suffered in the
cause. There was no speck on his escutcheon — not one.
From first to last he had been brave, honorable, generous,

COMPROMISES AND THE DOCTRINE 767

and noble; a Frenchman without guile. He had spent his
fortune and his blood for us; now, he was poor, and still
limped a little from the wound he had received at Brandy-
wine. He had never received the benefit of a grant of land
which had been made to him at the close of the war ; and
the country wished to show him its gratitude even at so late
a day. A national vessel was placed at his disposal, to bring
him over here ; but he modestly declined such an honor, and
sailed on a regular packet ship, reaching New York on the
15th of August. He had expected to take lodgings, and to
be the recipient of social courtesies from his old companions-
in-arms who still survived ; and the reception he met with
astonished him.

It is hard for the American nation to be moved to an
expression of genuine emotion ; they are slow to wear their
hearts upon their sleeves; there is a dry humor about them,
a touch of good-humored cynicism perhaps, which prevents
gushing or heroics of any kind. Possibly they were more
easily moved sixty years ago than they are now. But it
is as true now as it was then, that when our people are
thoroughly convinced of the worth of a given person, they
are not afraid to show it. The evidence must be clear ; but
when the fact is established, our response is as unmeasured
as the sunshine. Lafayette's story was writ large before
the world, and there was none to impugn it. Moreover, he
was in many ways peculiarly endeared to us ; he had been
the dearest friend of our departed Washington; he had
overcome all prejudices of birth and environment to give
his heart and sword to our need ; he had won the love and
respect of all who knew him. He now came to us like an
embodiment of a glorious and reverend past returned to as-
sure us that all was true which we had heard of the achieve-
ments and grandeur of our fathers. Emerging from so deep
and wide an abyss of time, Lafayette was a sort of gracious
miracle ; and all America rose up to take him to her heart.

It is of little avail to recount what were the specific acts

768 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of welcome accorded to him. The words he uttered at New
York, when the sincerity and fervor of the popular reception
were revealed to him, tell the story both for him and for us.
"It will burst!" he cried, with passion, pressing both his
hands over his heart, while tears rained down his aged
cheeks. We were strong, who had been weak; he was old,
who had given us the strength of his youth ; and as we, in
our crowded thousands, looked upon his beloved figure ; and
as he beheld the vast array of cheering multitudes, with wav-
ing hats, fluttering handkerchiefs, and ardent faces, sending
warm to his heart the sympathy and affection of their own,
the generous soldier who had never faltered before the enemy,
broke down, and had but that pregnant word to reply. The
episode is one of the loveliest in all history ; and the whole
sojourn of Lafayette among us, extending over fourteen
months, is forever memorable and honorable. What, in a
nation, is so grand as its gratitude? — What gift, to the recip-
ient, is so sweet and glorious? While he was with us, the
acerbities of party strife, the malice of rival ambitions, were
hushed ; in his presence, shame was ashamed to sit. By his
side seemed to tower the august shade of Washington, and
in his kindly eyes shone the spirit of '76. And he, contem-
plating the evidences of mighty prosperity which a genera-
tion and a half had wrought, was happy in his soul that he
had borne a share in creating the conditions from which it
sprang.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH

EXTREMES

HE Adams family has the unique distinction
of having furnished a President from two
consecutive generations. On the other hand,
neither of them was adapted to the peculiar
requirements of that difficult office. Both had
ability enough and to spare ; both were singu-
larly patriotic and honest ; but there their qualifications ended.
The elder Adams was too headstrong, vain, and opinion-
ated ; the younger was too cock-sure, too chilly, precise and
unsympathetic. It might be said of him, paradoxically, that
he understood men, but did not fathom human nature ; there
was no doubt about his familiarity with public affairs; he
had been suckled on them. He had no tact, or intuitive in-
sight ; he did not know when to bend ; he did not understand
the feeling and desires of the people. A more correct man
could not be found ; but, as President, he was as often wrong
as right in specific acts. He made enemies by inadvertently
wounding men's vanity or prejudices ; and his whole adminis-
tration was a fight and a wrangle ; and when he stood for re-
election, he found no effective supporters. In the first place,
he had been chosen by the House and not by the people ; and
this made it his duty to proceed with circumspection, and to
study to reconcile opposition. He did neither ; and the more
conscientiously he labored, the more isolated did he become.
Many thwarted him simply because they did not like him
personally; many more, because he slighted their projects.
U.S.— 33 Vol. III.

770 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

His very first act was crudely injudicious. He appointed
Clay his Secretary of State. Clay might or might not
have been competent to fill the office; the point was that
Clay had, practically, made him President. Everybody
knew that Clay coveted the State portfolio; and when he
so promptly received it, it was inevitable that there should
be accusations of a bargain. Both Clay and Adams denied
it, Clay with a lofty air of virtue which was not consonant
with his attitude and his letters just before the event; for
Clay was really not scrupulous about such things. Adams
probably acted from a feeling of gratitude, mingled with a
conviction that Clay would make a good Secretary. But this
was not enough ; he should have avoided the appearance of
evil; and in spite of his long and unblemished record,
he never recovered from the blow which this gave to his
reputation; and in times of such scurrilous political abuse,
it was only to be expected that so effective a weapon would
be used against him by his enemies. To start wrong is half
to lose the battle. The harm suffered by Clay in accept-
ing the office was hardly less; though much more would be
forgiven to him than to Adams, because he was so much
more likable a person.

Adams's next move was almost equally clumsy; for he
offered the Treasury and the War secretaryships to his
defeated rivals, Crawford and Jackson respectively. Craw-
ford, who continued to distil venom in his impotence, refused
with a snarl. Jackson was the bitter enemy of both Adams
and Clay ; of the former, because he had obtained the office,
through Clay's help, which the electoral votes had put within
Jackson's grasp; and Clay, both for this reason, and also
because of the part he had taken in the Seminole debate.
To make him an offer of a place in the Cabinet was there-
fore, from his point of view, to insult him ; and Adams was
warmed of this in time to save himself the snubbing which
Jackson was prepared to give him. Rush and Barbour
accepted the posts in question ; and the aged Ruf us King, at

EXTREMES 771

seventy, consented to go to England as he had done before
for Adams's father. But he soon resigned. Adams always
meant right, but he blundered. One cannot but respect the
firm stand he made, to his loss, against the policy of rota-
tion in office. He would not turn men out except for cause;
nor always then. "Change or rotation in office, " said he,
"would make the government a perpetual and unintermit-
tent scramble for office. A more pernicious expedient could
hardly have been devised. I determined to renominate every
person against whom there was no complaint which would
have warranted his removal ; and renominated every person
nominated by Monroe and upon whose nomination the Sen-
ate had declined acting." This stand was right and brave,
and was not receded from. But, as we know, it utterly
failed, in our politics, to overcome the principle enunciated
by Marcy, that "to the victors belong the spoils."

The coalition against Adams was formed without delay;
it combined the forces of Crawford with those of Jackson;
and Calhoun, the Vice-President, assisted them ; though at
the cost of having to eat his own avowed principles in the
past. But as Calhoun's purpose was to mold affairs to
bring him in as Adams's successor, the alliance between
him and Jackson was of course insincere and temporary.

Adams had announced as a settled feature of his policy,
disregarding the scruples of Constitutionalists, that internal
improvements would be advocated and pushed during his
administration ; and it seemed likely to be a popular meas-
ure. In 1825, the Erie Canal, three hundred and sixty-three
miles in length, and forty feet wide, was opened, and a way
thus made from Buffalo to New York. Cannon, placed at
intervals, signaled the completion of the work, traversing the
distance in an hour and a half : — for the electric telegraph
was still unthought of. A procession of boats and barges
proceeded from Erie to Albany, and thence down the Hud-
son to Sandy Hook; at which point Clinton, the father of
the Canal, in the sight of the multitude, poured the contents

772 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of a barrel of Erie water into the salt tide of the Atlantic.
The Canal was received with immense interest and enthu-
siasm, and others were planned in all directions ; so that had
it not been for the invention of steam coaches, the country
would soon have been intersected with waterways. But
science, which has made the Nineteenth Century distin-
guished, was beginning to make its influence felt ; and there
were steamboats everywhere; the first steamboat explosion
on the Mississippi had occurred in 1823. Roads extended
over a great part of the country, and before the railroads
were established, one could travel speedily enough for ordi-
nary purposes by horse and wagon. But the people were
already bitten with the mania for rapid transit; and that
disease has by no means run its course yet. It is innate in
our blood, and must have its way.

In 1825 took place the inauguration of the granite monu-
ment at Bunker Hill, with Webster to make the oration, and
Lafayettte to lay the cornerstone. It was a beautiful day,
on the 17th of June, and a vast crowd witnessed the cere-
monies. Fifty years had passed since that hillside had been
the theater of a far different scene; and this imposing func-
tion was good evidence that the farmers who fought there
had not shed their honest blood in vain. The mighty voice
of Webster was the fitting instrument of expression for the
deep thoughts and glorious prospects which the occasion must
needs call forth.

Meanwhile, there was opposition between the House and
the Senate, the latter being hostile to the President. His
plans for internal improvements were delayed, defeated, or
pronounced fanciful and impracticable. He was also sub-
jected to criticism for advocating our acceptance of an invita-
tion to attend a congress of the Spanish- American republics,
to be held on the Isthmus of Panama. Clay had joined with
Adams in urging this project; its somewhat sensational and
spectacular character seemed in accord with his temperament
rather than w^ the Executive's. Adams proposed to recom-

EXTREMES 773

mend to the members of the Congress liberal maritime laws,
religious liberty, an enlargement of the Monroe doctrine, and
other things of less moment. He named commissioners to
attend in our behalf, asserting his right to do so independ-
ently of Congress ; but submitted the proposal to them as a
matter of courtesy. The Senate hummed and hawed over it,
and stated a number of objections, but finally yielded rather
than bring on a fight with the House. But the whole scheme
collapsed, from the simple fact that its management was in
Spanish- American hands. Even Bolivar, the South Ameri-
can popular hero, seen at close quarters, turned out not to be
so great as rumor made him. The incident was useful only
as indicating the incapacity of the Spanish- Americans to
accomplish anything of value, from governing themselves
down ; but the lesson is one which we seem as yet to have
mastered but imperfectly. The connection of the United
States with this affair gave the opposition an opportunity of
saying that Clay and Adams had taken it up in order to dis-
tract public attention from their corrupt bargain with each
other. John Randolph, with his squeaky voice, in his stage
attire of a dissolute groom, his eyes leering with intoxication,
hiccoughed his rambling but occasionally pungent accusa-
tions and revilings ; in the course of which he happened to
remark that the political bond between the President and the
Secretary of State was an alliance between a " Puritan and
a blackleg." For this Clay challenged him to a duel with
pistols; and Clay meant to kill him. Randolph, who had
long been accustomed to regard himself as a licensed buffoon,
was startled at this check ; but had not the moral courage to
get out of the scrape, and the men met. Randolph seems
to have been badly rattled; his pistol went off before the
word was given; he was undecided whether he would fire
in the air or at Clay ; in the first exchange neither was hit ;
in the second, after seeing Clay's bullet strike the ground
beside him, he let off his own weapon in the air, and then
shambled hurriedly forward with outstretched hand and an

774 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

ingratiating smile. Clay accepted the overture, and the
Republic was safe. But Randolph's conduct had become so
indecorous and incorrigible, that he could not be re-elected
to the Senate; though he was returned to the House some
time later. He has been called "the image of a great man
stamped on base metal." But there was really nothing
incongruous in the man. He was a low-comedy actor of
genius, with a native wit and readiness which could sting
and amuse. By ill luck, he shambled into politics, instead
of on to the stage; his impudence, his irreverence, and his
fondness for slashing right and left without regard to prin-
ciple or person, aided his grotesque personal appearance in
making him conspicuous; and his sallies and his faculty
of calling names relieved the dullness or the solemnity of
debates. His influence, so far as he was able to exercise
any, was first in the direction of general criticism ; and then
in laying the foundation of that defense of slavery which
consisted in affirming it to be a private domestic concern of
the Southerners, with which the North must not meddle but
at its peril. This line was taken up later by the far more
able Calhoun ; and the two together, with Hayne and some
others, supplied the phrases and watchwords which were so
often heard afterward in the field days of later times. The
doctrine of State rights was made tc mean among other things
the right of the individual to manage the affairs of his own
household. "The moment the United States shall make the
unhallowed attempt to interfere with the domestic concerns
of Southern States," said Hayne, "those States will consider
themselves driven out of the Union." Such adjectives as
"unhallowed" and "domestic," used in this connection, were
well calculated to stimulate the sensibilities of a race trained
to regard themselves as subject to no rule higher than their
own will.

Georgia had an opportunity to show her temper in the
dispute about the Creek lands in her territory. The govern-
ment policy was to buy the Indians out, whenever they could

EXTREMES 775

be induced to sell ; but the Georgians wished to adopt the
simpler method of compelling them to vacate. A treaty was
negotiated to this end ; but it was so corruptly managed that
Adams was compelled to interfere. This made the Georgians
angry; and in the subsequent rectification of the boundary
between Georgia and Alabama, they unconstitutionally in-
sisted upon running the line themselves, and threatened the
United States with armed resistance if interfered with. A
man named Troup was the leader in this illegality, and he
conducted himself with unrestrained insolence, until the
news came that United States troops were actually on the
march. He then assured the government that he had never
contemplated armed resistance ; and the affair was suffered
to blow over ; Adams behaving with much lenience. As for
the Indians, they were kept moving toward the west ; and
it must be admitted that they were fit occupants of no civil-
ized community. Contact with white men's whisky had de-
prived them of what small claim to tolerance they had ever
possessed.

Randolph's successor in the Senate may be mentioned,
inasmuch as he accidentally became a national figure after-
ward ; it was John Tyler, a Virginian, who had the misfort-
une to be always placed in the position of having to explain
some past action which seemed inconsistent with his present
profession; or of vindicating himself from charges of bad
faith. — The year 1826 was signalized by the death, on the
Fourth of July, of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson ; who
had lived, since their retirement, accompanied by honor, love,
obedience, troops of friends ; who had been cordial personal
friends, and who deserved to be associated, in death as they
had been in life, with that great act of freedom to which
their names are subscribed. Monroe, five years later, had
the same distinction. Both he and Jefferson died so poor
that they barely fell short of pauperdom ; and a subscription
was started for Jefferson on the very day of his death. He
remained a cheerful philosopher to the end; but Monroe

776 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was distressed in mind, and his health suffered from the
fact.

In the same year Gallatin, who had exchanged Paris for
the dismal quiet of a Pennsylvania village, was sent to Eng-
land to discuss American relations with Canning. The lat-
ter had by this time laid aside his momentary semblance of
friendliness toward this country, and now shut us out from
commerce with the West Indies, on frivolous grounds. There
was also a dispute pending regarding the Canada boundary
at Maine and Oregon. Canning's death, unlamented both
in England and in America, came opportunely to heal dis-
sension; and did more than Gallatin's efforts to afford pros-
pects of an amicable settlement. But Congress, from a
wanton desire to embarrass the President, refused to give
him proper assistance in his negotiations. Adams's tend-
ency to centralize power subjected him to suspicion and jeal-
ousy, and was of ill augury for the remaining two years of
his term.

But the most obvious activity of these two years was the
effort of the friends of Jackson to secure his election as the
next President. Hitherto, every President, with the excep-
tion of Adams's own father, had received the compliment of
a second term ; but Jackson's energy and Adams's unpopu-
larity were to break the spell once more. He counted upon
the support, not of Crawford — for Crawford was incapable
of any but selfish thoughts, and though his mind was affected
by his disease, he still clung with ludicrous obstinacy to his
former hopes — but of Crawford's quondam supporters; and
they finally ranged themselves on his side ; the first to come
over being the arch political strategist, Martin Van Buren,
who was of great use in importing into the canvass all the
tact, suavity, sagacity, and knowledge of ways and means
that his principal lacked. Jackson himself could think of
no better campaign argument than that of repeating the old
cry of Bargain and Corruption against Adams and Clay;
and though the proof on which he relied failed him upon

EXTREMES 7Tj

ferial, he never retracted the charge, and the people accepted
it with the heedlessness of democracies. On the other side,
Clay rather than Adams appeared as the defender of the
administration and Jackson's antagonist. But Clay was
rowing against the popular tide, while Jackson was coming
with it. Adams refused the most necessary expedients to
better his chances, and he early gave up all hope of succeed-
ing himself. Calhoun's defection gave Jackson additional
strength in the South, Pennsylvania was for him, and the
New York democracy, under the control of Van Buren and
Clinton, carried New York. In New England the issue was
in some doubt, but the Jackson forces were better disciplined
than those of Adams. When the Congressional elections of
1827 were over, the House as well as the Senate was Jack-
sonian — the first time such a conjunction had occurred. The
consequence was, that the national legislature, instead of
paying attention to the President's recommendation of meas-
ures tending to the public weal, occupied itself almost exclu-
sively with electioneering tactics, and attempts to discredit
the Executive for past acts or omissions.

The only measure of public concern at this session was
what was known as "the Woolen Bill"; or, otherwise, a bill
to reform the tariff. The increased duty on imported woolen
goods was from seven to twelve per cent; and iron, hemp
and lead were also penalized. Adams signed the bill, though
it was not an administration measure ; he had always ab-
stained from the question, out of consideration for the preju-
dices of the South. Neither would Jackson admit support-
ing it, though it could not have been passed but by the votes
of his friends. But it met with great opposition ; and Hayne
of South Carolina declared it to be partial, unjust and un-
constitutional. For the produce of the South had hitherto
found its chief market in Europe, and a high duty would
diminish this market, by preventing the manufactured prod-
uct from finding its market here. The question split South
and North into two hostile camps at once. The South, ex-

77S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

cept sugar-planting Louisiana, was solid for free trade. She
asked to be let alone to form her own policy ; she believed
she could prosper by making her own terms with Europe;
she did not need the North ; and the suggestion of secession
was scarcely veiled. The North meanwhile from free-trade
had become protectionist, being the seat of the manufactur-
ing interest.

Clay resigned his secretaryship on the plea of ill-health.
The candidates were named — Adams and Kush on one side,
Jackson and Calhoun on the other. The campaign was the
most scurrilous thus far in our history; nothing was spared
in the way of scandal and abuse. Adams men took the title
of National Republicans; Jacksonites, that of Democrats.
The former jeered at the illiterate, grog-shop affiliations of
the latter; but the latter had the majority in the country.
New Eugland alone was true to Adams; and from the first,
he never had any real chance against his foes. He gained
nothing from the Clay interest. He met defeat coldly and
unflinchingly, and the last months of his thoroughly con-
scientious and patriotic administration were dignified and
quiet. He had not succeeded in being a congenial Presi-
dent ; but had his recommendations been followed the coun-
try would have been the better. He wished to make the
United States expand and become richer and more powerful
by availing itself of the resources of science and of broadly
conceived internal improvements ; but he had not sufficiently
combined general views with particular applications to carry
the people with him. The Tariff Bill alienated the South,
under the secret stimulus applied by Calhoun, and the open
attacks of Hayne. From being warm in recommending in-
ternal improvements and a thorough-going protectionist,
Calhoun, for reasons best known to himself, faced square
about and supported the opposite principles. Nothing in his-
tory is more mysterious than the willingness of men of great
parts, in public life, to destroy their reputations before pos-
terity for the sake of gaining a temporary advantage over

EXTREMES 779

their immediate opponents. "Honesty is the best policy,"
said Poor Richard. "It is better to be right than to be
President," said another clear-eyed man. But the men
who pledge honor for high stakes seem to believe that they
can hoodwink history as easily as they can outmaneuver
their antagonists on the field.

With feelings somewhat like those with which the patri-
cians of ancient Rome witnessed the irruption of the Goths
and Vandals, did the conservative element in the country
behold the rough-handed mob swarming into power, with
their "Hurrah for Jackson!" Were law and order doomed?
— could our institutions survive ? — was this America?— The
Republic was stancher, and the Union stronger, than any-
body suspected ; and it was well that they should be tested
at every point.

It is easy to be impartial to Jackson now, more than
sixty years after he strutted his hour upon the public stage ;
but during that hour, it must have been well-nigh impossi-
ble to be neither his partisan nor his foe. So violent a parti-
san as he himself was must create, while he occupied the
highest place, a like sentiment in all who came in contact
with him. There is no defending Jackson's policy as it re-
lated to dismissal from office in the internal affairs of the
country. He did not care to disguise the fact that he meant
to have his friends in, and his opponents out. In order to
be his friend, a man did not have to be decent or honorable ;
all that was required was that he should be an uncompro-
mising Jacksonite. Many of the men whom he appointed
to fill places against whose incumbents no charge would
stand, were persons more fitted for a cell in a jail than for
public trusts. The principle was almost as bad as the prac-
tice; it made the conduct of affairs a matter of sale or plun-
der. A more serious charge against Jackson is, that he
constantly and seemingly wantonly lied to men as to his
intentions; he would assure them that they would not be
disturbed, invite them to take a glass of wine with him in

78o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

token of cordial friendship, and then, the moment their
backs were turned, would chop off their heads. There is
much to be said, no doubt, on the plea that an administra-
tion is hampered by hostile incumbents of office; but that,
or anything, is better than that the civil service should be
thrown to the dogs, because the dogs snap and snarl on the
side of the Executive.

The fact is that Jackson was one man when his temper
was roused, his pride or vanity touched, or his personal feel-
ings in any way engaged, and quite a different man under
other circumstances. He was honest except when he was
angry; when he was angry it was all chance whether he
were honest or not; he did not care. His administration
was generally good and sometimes admirable, apart from
his private animosities and grudges. His foreign policy
was brisk and stiff, and yet not offensive; — "ask nothing
that is not right, and submit to nothing that is wrong,"
was his maxim there. After the reign of terror among
office-holders, and the saturnalia among office-seekers, had
begun to abate a little, and the main features of his ideas
of government were revealed, there turned out to be little
to which a well-wisher of his country could not subscribe.
He would not tax the people for internal improvements; lie
wanted the people to have their say and their way in all
matters ; but on the other hand he, as the representative of
the people, insisted upon absolute power in the executive de-
partment ; so that he was a despot in effect, and a democrat
in idea; and the people seemed perfectly satisfied. Get the
proletariat to believe that the man on the throne is one of
themselves, thinks their thoughts, and shares their aims,
and they will back him in any exercise of absolutism. It
is not he that is the tyrant, but they; therefore it is not
tyranny but freedom. Jackson had a certain luck, or it
may have been intuition about the people, which constantly
gave him the upper hand in his dealings with opponents in
and out of Congress. He relied on the people to back him

EXTREMES 781

against Congress, and the success of his vetoes shows he
guessed right. His prestige became so formidable that Con-
gress feared him, as schoolboys fear the master. He was
much more a man, much franker and more fearless, and
much more often right and unselfish in purpose, than the
majority of the Senate or House; and therefore they dreaded
a contest with him, in which the motives actuating them
might be revealed. Besides, Jackson so easily got angry,
and when angry, he hit so hard, and was so unrelenting!
The man that would openly antagonize him must be des-
perately in earnest, and unusually strong; and even then,
the odds were all with Jackson.

His refusal to advocate improvements did not surprise
any one ; and what was really needed in that line could be
otherwise provided for. But he startled every one when he
showed fight to the United States Bank. This institution
had become strong and prosperous under Biddle's manage-
ment, and was a great power : too great, Jackson may have
believed ; but that was not the reason why he fought it ; the
reason was personal; Biddle had questioned his authority.
A hectoring person named Mason was manager of the Ply-
mouth, New Hampshire, branch of the bank, and complaints
were made of him ; Biddle investigated, found nothing wrong,
and indorsed the man in the face of the suspicions of Ing-
ham, the Secretary of the Treasury ; at the same time, in
his overweening confidence, writing the following foolish
defiance : "I deem it my duty to state to you, in a manner
perfectly respectful to your official and personal character,
yet so clear as to leave no possibility of misconception, that
the board of directors of the Bank of the United States, and
the boards of directors of the branches of the Bank of the
United States, acknowledge not the slightest responsibility of
any description whatsoever to the Secretary of the Treasury
touching the political opinions and conduct of their officers."
Of course not : but the letter is very amusing, in showing
of what abject imbecility a clever financier, who thinks that

782 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

money is everything, and pulls down his waistcoat with an
air, is capable. Biddle wrote as he might have written to
a clerk who wanted his salary raised. The idea of a conflict
between a Biddle and a Jackson — and that Jackson a Presi-
dent— is almost pathetic. "By the Eternal, I'll take the
strut out of this Biddle!" Jackson remarked: and it was
not long before floods of light broke upon the unhappy man
of money, too late to do him any good. His disgraceful end,
many years afterward, doubtless brought a grim smile to
Jackson's face, as he reflected that, in striking him, he had
not struck amiss.

But before the Bank quarrel could be settled, several other
things were to happen. The general aspect of affairs was
smiling. Washington Irving was sent as Minister to Eng-
land ; and by way of balancing this excellent appointment,
John Randolph was given the mission to Russia. Randolph
was a man whose ideas of conduct suited to a gentleman,
and to a representative of his country, were peculiar, like all
else about him. He had a number of debts, which he had
contracted without much hope of paying them ; this office
would give him the means of doing so. On the other hand,
he was averse from the labor which that or any office might
entail ; so after accepting the appointment, and spending a
week or so at his post, he set out for London, where he
amused himself for several years, and then drew his salary,
amounting to over twenty thousand dollars. It belonged to
him no more than it did to the slave overseer on his farm ;
but he drew it without compunction, liquidated some of his
personal liabilities with it, and returned gayly home. It
was one of this statesman's practical jokes; and like other
jokes, has been often repeated in our politics. — Clay went
home and took to farming again, but he was not to remain
there long ; Webster returned to Congress. Hayne was also
there; and Calhoun sat, as before, pale and impenetrable in
the chair of the Senate Chamber. The champions of the
great debates that were to be were assembled ; but as yet

EXTREMES 783

unconscious of what they were to do. The country was free
and easy, and looked forward to good times. There was
some uneasiness regarding the tariff, to be sure ; and Jack-
son's message was slightly ambiguous in respect of it; but
it seemed probable that a reasonable course would be pur-
sued. South Carolina, at all events, was quite sure that she
knew what she needed better than the official tariff -mongers.
A convention, of which much was hoped, met in Virginia
under distinguished auspices, and presented an amended con-
stitution; but the result was not considered entirely satisfac-
tory. The opportunity to pass a resolution for the gradual
abolition of slavery in the state was not improved ; and thus
an example which might have been followed by other states
was lost. The improved facilities of transport and communi-
cation had made it possible for free labor to take the place
of slavery, or at least to compete favorably with it ; but the
Southerners were wedded to their idols. The public debt
would soon be paid off, and when that was done, the sur-
plus might be applied in ways that would increase the wel-
fare of the country. In the southwest, there was again
trouble with the Indians, this time the Cherokees, who, to
the number of fifteen thousand, had a settlement in Georgia,
and had made some advances in civilization. They wished
to have their settlement made a separate state ; the Georgians
naturally objected ; a test case was made, and appealed to
the Supreme Court, which decided favorably to the Indians,
but were powerless, without the aid of the President, to en-
force their ruling, which Georgia disregarded. The Presi-
dent declined to use the army to secure red men in the rights
they claimed, however legally ; it was impossible they could
live under such conditions. He advised them to cross the
Mississippi and avoid trouble; but the dispute was the old
original one between white and red men, never to be settled
in strict equity. Indians have some rights which white men
are bound to respect ; but they claim some others which can
never be accorded, unless we give up the continent to them.

784 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Jackson began his career as a vetoer with some bills for
appropriations for roads. He saw jobbery in them, and that
the pickings and stealings of the promoters would exceed the
expenditures for the public good. If the states were once
encouraged to lay the cost of their internal improvements
on the national government, there would ensue a carnival
of political thimble-rigging all over the land. Jackson did
good work in scotching this boa-constrictor promptly and
resolutely.

But though the morning of the administration thus flat-
tered the mountain tops with sovereign eye, there were clouds
on the horizon, gathering in an unexpected quarter. Jack-
son had been indebted to South Carolina for her vote; she
had supposed that he would favor her tariff views. Other
states had voted for him as a protectionist. Here was a dis-
crepancy which would come to judgment sooner or later.
He could not be on both sides of the fence ; which would
he choose? Calhoun thought the time good to test the mat-
ter ; and he also thought that Jackson would easily be in-
duced to take South Carolina's view. Being kept from the
floor himself, he used Hayne as his mouthpiece. Hayne
however was anything but a puppet, moving only when
another pulled his strings ; he was an able, versatile and
charming man, eloquent, winning, graceful, harmonious,
nimble in the dance, entertaining at the table, and persua-
sive and impressive in the Senate. Ordinarily he might
have had everything his way; but there was Webster in
the field, and one Webster was more than a match for six
other champions, be they who they might. The debate was
one of the historic ones of Congress. Hayne was the most
refined type of the Southern gentleman and man of honor ;
Webster was Webster.

The discussion began with a suggestion from an Eastern
Senator to limit the sale of public lands. This was taken by
Southerners as a check to their development ; and Hayne at-
tacked New England on that ground. Webster, replying,

EXTREMES 785

so demolished his argument as to mortify his self-esteem,
and he prepared an elaborate speech, in the course of which
he arraigned New England for her disloyalty in the late war
with England, denouncing her for the very insistence upon
state rights which were the basis of the Southern doctrine of
nullification, to which what might be called official expres-
sion was now for the first time given. It involved the right
of a state to nullify a law which should appear to be clearly
unconstitutional, within that state's own borders and for her
own protection ; the present application being to the tariff.
Hayne's speech lasted two days, for he was a verbose as well
as a graceful speaker; and it was held by his friends and
feared by his opponents to be unmatchable. But it suited
Webster well ; for he had given thought to the subject long
before, and knew what course to take. He needed but an
evening to prepare himself for what turned out to be one of
the greatest speeches ever made, and perhaps the greatest
of his career. "There is Hayne's whole speech," he an-
swered an anxious inquirer, who wished to know whether
he had taken full notes ; and he showed him a bit of paper
as big as an envelope with a few pencil marks on it. A
large and excited audience had assembled to hear him. He
entered the Chamber with the port of Jove, majestic and
composed; obviously able not to conquer only, but to conquer
easily. What should graceful panthers like Hayne do when
this royal lion came on the arena? Hayne had spoken well,
but from a narrow standpoint — the special pleader for local
interests, the sophist and skilled manipulator. Webster
stood majestic and broad-shouldered, the human embodiment
of the nation, the Union and the Constitution. He shaped
his ideas in imposing masses, towering with pinnacles of
golden eloquence, but based on immutable foundations of
granite truth. When he had spoken, there was no voice
to answer him; there was nothing to answer. His words
went forth to the nation, north and south, and were convinc-
ing and final. Even the stout and ambiguous Benton, who

786 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

had been a Nullifier, was converted thenceforth to Unionism.
Hayne had his quietus; his mentor, Calhoun, could find no
other shield or sword for him, to replace those which had
been that day destroyed. There is no other instance of a
single speech having so completely annihilated a political
doctrine, and at the same time furnished every requisite
defense of a sublime principle against attack. The South,
indeed, might nullify, it might declare state rights, it might
secede; but it could never refute Webster's arguments, or
claim an}' constitutional sanction for its acts.

As regarded the attack on New England, Webster refused
to restrict her defense to the vindication of the knot of mal-
contents who dallied with England and attended the Hart-
ford Convention. He went beyond and above them to New
England herself, who had remonstrated with James, and had
resisted George ; to the free and unconquerable people who
had passed equal laws, stood firm for human rights, and
fought at Bunker Hill. The cause of liberty would always
be safe with this people, and they were loyal to the Union
which they had sacrificed and suffered so much to attain.
The Union was a decree of no State legislature, district or
clique, but was the realized will of the people at large, who
thereby became a nation. Only by means of it could liberty
be assured to posterity ; it could not be riven asunder by the
whim or petulance of selfish minorities, by any state or com-
bination of states; no partial considerations could avail to
disrupt it; no plea for liberty without Union could avail; but
there must be "liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable. " The words will never be forgotten ; they were
the rallying cry that brought the loyal states together under
the flag when rebellion was declared; they are the expression
of the true America. And the principle which they assert
ruled Webster's whole career.

Calhoun made one attempt to draw Jackson over to his
side in the controversy; he caused a dinner to be given at
Washington by the anti-tariff party, to which he and the

EXTREMES 787

President should be invited. Jackson came ; but those reck-
oned ill who fancied that the old soldier was to be entrapped
into any indiscretion ; more than that, he utterly turned the
tables on them. For when he was asked for a toast, he arose
and said with emphasis, "Our Federal Union — it must be
preserved!" It was vain, after that, for Calhoun to get up
and suavely talk about Union being the next most dear
to liberty ; the game was up, and it was so understood. Nor
did it answer to try to make out Jefferson as having been
the father of the nullification idea ; he had devised the thing
to meet the special occasion of the Alien and Sedition laws,
but had never attempted or desired to push it further. It
was Calhoun who was responsible for erecting it into a po-
litical principle, and making it the cover for designs which
Jefferson had during his presidency explicitly and constantly
opposed. And Calhoun must bear the credit or the blame
of his achievement.

But though Jackson could defeat British regulars at New
Orleans, dominate his Cabinet and overpower Congress, there
was one thing he was not strong enough to do, and that was,
to make fine ladies behave with human charity toward a
woman. Their malice is as impalpable as a mephitic vapor,
which is nevertheless fatal. There was in Washington an
inn-keeper by the name of O'Neil, who had a pretty and
lively daughter, Peggy. She was a clever, alert, jolly little
personage, who drew company to her father's resort by her
wit and lively manners. She would laugh and toss jests
back and forth with the gentlemen who came there to drink
and smoke their pipes, and who, in the enthusiasm of the
moment, would occasionally, perhaps, catch her and give her
a kiss, and get a buffet on the ear in return. This was the
extent of the indictment against her; all the rest was infer-
ence and surmise ; and who shall escape calumny? She mar-
ried a purser in the navy, who died, and afterward became
the wife of Major Eaton, who was Jackson's Secretary of
"War, and had long been an admirer of Peggy's. That he

788 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

should have made her the guardian of his honor should have
been enough to silence scandal ; but the white doves of rank
and fashion are more bloodthirsty and merciless than harpies
when a chance offers to destroy one of their own sex. The
manners of the age were free, and its morals none too strict;
but it is at least as probable that Peggy was chaste as that
her accusers were so. The latter, however, clubbed together
to insult and trample on her; they would not attend recep-
tions to which she was invited, or sit at dinner with her, or
in any way admit that she was of the same flesh and blood
as they. Jackson, who had felt that wrong which rumor
does to women, when the good name of his own blameless
wife had been assailed in the campaign, was highly indig-
nant, and undertook to be Mrs. Eaton's champion. He is-
sued invitations, he singled out Mrs. Eaton for attentions,
he brought the whole pressure that the ruler of the nation
and the head of Washington society could exercise, to bear
upon recalcitrants : but how are you to compel a woman to
attend a given reception, or to forbear to switch her skirt
aside when a certain person passes, or to return a salute,
or to stay in a room when she chooses to march out? You
may manage a man easily enough ; you can call him out
and shoot him if he is unreasonable ; but woman is unassail-
able, and profits by that fact. Jackson went so far as to
threaten to dismiss his whole Cabinet if their wives did not
behave themselves; the unhappy gentlemen feared their
wives more than they did Jackson, or the destruction of
their public careers, and were obliged to tell him that much
as they personally liked and believed in Peggy— Bellona, she
came to be called, for she was a plucky woman herself, as
well as the stirrer-up of war— they dared not encounter
curtain-lectures, and were absolutely impotent to convert
or constrain the deliverers of them. Well, an impenetrable
body had encountered an irresistible impact ; and what was
to happen? For a time it seemed likely that Washington
society would cease to exist ; but the futility of the struggle

EXTREMES 789

finally became apparent to the old soldier. Nothing was to
be gained, even for Mrs. Eaton, by prolonging it. He grad-
ually dropped the matter; but it had the singular effect
of bringing his Cabinet councils to an end, and for the
present he took counsel only with Martin Van Buren, with
whom it was impossible for any one to quarrel, and with
certain other henchmen of his own, who identified them-
selves with him, and were ready to indorse anything he
did, or perform any order he might issue. Van Buren
was the greatest political manager ever known in Amer-
ican public life up to that time; and under his train-
ing, New York was so thoroughly organized as to be a
model. Indeed, Van Buren was so busy being a politician
that he had no leisure left to be a statesman, though in the
fullness of time he did become a President. But he knew
how to wait and calculate chances, and was satisfied that
Jackson was good for a second term. His own real rival,
as he foresaw, was likely to be Calhoun ; but by accepting
the second place on Jackson's ticket, Van Buren was able
to postpone the issue, and avail himself of the aid of time.
Meanwhile, Calhoun was fatally injured with Jackson for
two reasons : first, because he had been prominent in putting
down Bellona ; and secondly, because Crawford, languishing
in retirement, and wishing to do all the harm he could, com-
municated the information that Calhoun had recommended
the punishment of Jackson for the Seminole affair of 1818.
Jackson demanded an explanation from Calhoun, who an-
swered in a long, argumentative, but not conclusive letter;
upon which Jackson told him that their friendship was at
an end. It had been Calhoun's ambition to succeed Jack-
son as an ostensible friend of his administration; he had
not realized that it was impossible to carry the country on
the nullification, or state's rights issue; he knew nothing
of the North, and fancied that there was a strong feeling
against centralization. In this impression he was encour-
aged by his Southern supporters. But his quarrel with

790 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Jackson was, in truth, the end of his hopes. Meanwhile
it was used by Jackson as a pretext for dissolving his Cab-
inet and selecting a new one — an unprecedented act in Ex-
ecutive annals. By a shrewd bit of strategy he began the
substitution not with Calhoun's friends, but with his own;
Eaton being more than ready to leave on account of the em-
barrassment which the fight for Bellona had brought him ;
Van Buren from a clear comprehension of the situation and
foresight of the future. These two having gone, Jackson
intimated to the others that it would be necessary to make
a complete change ; and they were relieved of their positions
without unnecessary violence, as the hotel-bouncers say.
Jackson thus prepared to fight Calhoun to a finish, with
the advantage on his side ; and to fortify himself with the
country by dint of his new Cabinet ; for his new appoint-
ments were popular, and the ensemble was abler than the
previous one; while at the same time the President was
easily able to control them all. Throughout his whole ad-
ministration, Jackson profited greatly by his policy of address-
ing the people through newspapers run in his interests ; and
the American press thus gained a prominence in politics
which led, soon after, to the establishment of journals like
the "Sun," "Herald," and "Tribune," which were the
foundation of the independent journalism of our day.
While thus intrenching himself at home, the old general
won victories abroad; obtaining from England, by some
harmless concessions of form, the trade with the West In-
dies which Adams had lost, and securing the payment of
the French claims, which had been owing since Napoleon's
day. Such a President could not be beaten; and he had
the fight with the United States Bank, which was made to
appear as a conflict with the moneyed aristocracy and with
political jobbery, in reserve. What had Calhoun to bring
into action against all this? So far as he personally was
concerned, the only thing that was done was to take an
opportunity, at a banquet tendered to him in the South, to

EXTREMES 791

deliver a philosophic argument in favor of the right of nulli-
fication. Should it be denied, he asserted that the federal
government would become consolidated, and our liberties
would be forfeit. He was put in nomination for the Presi-
dency on this platform ; but the country at large perceived
dangers from an adoption of his theories greater than those
against which he warned ; and with Jackson and Webster
to vindicate Union, the outlook for the South Carolinian
was not bright.

The Twenty-second Congress, which met in December,
1831, was full of men of the first ability, and had an excit-
ing career. Benton was the chief defender of the Executive ;
there were Webster and Clay, Rufus Choate and Everett,
Thomas Corwin of Ohio, and many others of prowess. Clay
was chosen to lead the struggle against Jackson. Jackson
assumed a composed and peaceful demeanor in his message,
waiting for the other side to attack; which, under Clay, they
were not slow in doing. The opposition was divided among
itself, but united against President Jackson. Clay was him-
self in nomination for the Presidency, and was now a stronger
candidate than Calhoun.

Acting on Clay's advice, the first question brought up
was that of the recharter of the Bank. Jackson would per-
haps have preferred to have that matter go over until after
the next election ; but this was the more a reason for Clay
to press it now; he hoped to destroy the Executive by a
deadly alternative. There was a number of Democrats who
favored the recharter ; it was most likely that Congress, in
both branches, would vote for it ; and then it would lie with
Jackson either to veto or to accept the measure. If he vetoed
it, he would divide his party and be subject to dangerous
criticism, even if the bill did not pass over the veto ; and if
he signed it, he would appear as timorous and weak. In
either case, the issue would imperil his re-election. Webster,
though siding with Jackson against Calhoun, was with Clay
on this question; and McLane, the new Secretary of the

792 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Treasury, had already declared the Bank to be indispen-
sable. Moreover, the Bank was apparently in a most pros-
perous position, and firmly rooted in the scheme of things.
Nicholas Biddle did not believe he could be beaten.

The outlook for the Bank was certainly good, on the sur-
face. Its weak points were, first, that Nicholas Biddle was
a rascal and secretly guilty of all manner of dishonesty, and
that the Bank itself, consequently, which was practically
under his exclusive control, was rotten to the core : and sec-
ondly, that Jackson was a fighter, that he hated and dis-
trusted the Bank, and would stick at nothing to destroy it.
And neither Clay nor Biddle had any adequate conception
of Jackson's strength with the country, or the trust it placed
in his statements and acts. The battle was long and sav-
agely fought on both sides ; but the upshot was never really
in doubt.

Biddle bribed right and left, concealed all sinister facts
either by direct lying or by covering up traces; and Clay
and his followers, many of whom sincerely believed that the
Bank was as honest and valuable as Biddle declared it to
be, deployed their eloquence in Congress. Benton and the
rest of the Jackson men met them with a vast array of
charges, some of which were guess-work, but none of which
surpassed the facts when the latter came to be known; they
hammered everything in sight indiscriminately, and spared
nothing and no one ; and though they did not prevent the re-
charter from passing the Senate and House, the conviction
aroused in the public mind was, that so much smoke must
portend some fire. "When, therefore, Jackson, upon receiving
the amended bill, sent it back with his veto, the country was
prepared for it ; and Congress failed to pass it over the veto
by the necessary two-thirds vote. The sympathy, after this
first round of the fight, was with Jackson, and against the
financial octopus which he affirmed and believed to be squeez-
ing the independence and virtue out of the community. Jack-
son bel:eved this because he wanted to believe it: because he

EXTREMES 793

hated Biddle and had been offended by the Bank's defiance.
It was his good luck that the facts happened to justify his
suspicions; but it can hardly be doubted that he would have
hated the Bank and its manager just as much, had they been
as pure as driven snow. To some extent he was fighting in
the dark, and might, for aught he knew, have been trying
to kill an angel of light instead of a demon of darkness.

The time for the present charter of the Bank to expire
was still five years off, and the war was therefore far from
being decided yet; but Jackson had the best of it so far.
Meanwhile the tariff came up for discussion. This was a
problem whose true solution still seems as far off as ever, and
it is not to be expected that in the early age of which we are
writing it could be handled in a conclusive manner. Too
many things had to be considered, and instead of the con-
clusions of experience, there was little or nothing but theo-
ries to go upon. Free trade must always be the theoretical
ideal, but protection is the practical necessity, unless all na-
tions are united on the question. In America, at this junc-
ture, various states wanted high duties on some articles and
low ones or none at all on others. We had shown that we
could be prosperous under a high tariff; but it seemed evi-
dent that we must lose by a policy which would open our
ports without causing those of Europe to open in return.
Clay favored protection — the American system, as he called
it — but with the reservation that it should be modified.
South Carolina, through Hayne as its spokesman, adopted
an independent attitude, defying all the other states, and an-
swering every argument with a threat of secession. Hayne
declared, and Calhoun supported him in saying, that protec-
tion was unconstitutional. Calhoun had marked the deser-
tion of South Carolina by commerce, and chose to believe
that the stagnation of his state was due not to the effects of
slavery upon its white inhabitants, but to the tariff. It is
probable, too, that South Carolina painted the evils of its
plight blacker than they were, in order to urge the remedy
U.S.— 34 Vol. III.

794 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of nullification, which had become the pet project of the
leaders of the state. Clay was willing to lessen certain du-
ties, but was firm for establishing the principle of protection ;
and the bill which was submitted to the President in July,
1832, reduced the revenue some eight million dollars, but
maintained the right of the government to protect. It was
a most moderate measure ; yet it was the signal for South
Carolina to take a step which was as unjustifiable as it
was futile.

Before that could happen, however, Congress adjourned,
and the election contest was begun in earnest. Clay and
Jackson were the only antagonists to be considered. Clay
led the banking people and the aristocracy; Jackson had
the rest of the nation. The Bank was the main issue. But
Clay obscured this by various charges against Jackson.
His corrupt changes in the civil service were denounced,
his expensive foreign embassies, his undermining of the au-
thority of the Supreme Bench, and his Indian policy. Clay
demanded a firmer bond of union, an extension of internal
improvements, and the supremacy of law. His followers
were, in turn, accused of being beneficiaries of the Bank.
The two armies joined issue as National Republicans, and
as Jackson Democrats. It was, in fact, the classes against
the masses. A side issue was introduced by a crusade
against the Freemasons, brought on by the alleged killing
of William Morgan by members of the order, for having
revealed Masonic secrets. There was great excitement over
this,, and the whole principle of secret societies was de-
nounced as • un-American ; but the charges were never
proved, and were probably untrue; though Morgan cer-
tainly disappeared, and has never been heard of since.
Anti-Masonic candidates took the field, but were over-
whelmingly defeated by both the regular tickets.

John Sergeant was Clay's companion on the Republican
ticket ; Martin Van Buren was the Democratic Vice-Presi-
dent. Van Buren had been sent as minister to London;

EXTREMES 795

but Clay and Calhoun thought it a good diplomatic stroke
to get him recalled as if in disgrace, and thus cut short his
public career. "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead," Cal-
houn remarked in Benton's hearing: "He will never kick,
sir, never kick." But this was a mistake. The country-
sympathized with Van Buren, and penetrated the selfish
motives which had put this slight upon him; his own be-
havior in meeting the situation was of course irreproachable;
and when Jackson, as a vindication, invited him to stand
with him, the people showed their appreciation by giving
him a rousing vote. "You have broken a minister and
elected a vice-presideot," remarked Benton to Clay.

Nearly one and a quarter million votes were cast in this
election; Jackson's majority over Clay was over one hun-
dred and fifty thousand, a gain of nineteen thousand over
the vote for his first term. He had two hundred and nine-
teen electoral votes ; Clay only forty-nine. Van Buren was
scarcely less triumphant, though he lost the Pennsylvania
vote for special reasons.

South Carolina took no part in this campaign, further
than to cast her votes for John Floyd of Virginia for Presi-
dent, and for Henry Lee of Massachusetts for Vice-Presi-
dent, they being the one a states-rights man, the other a
free-trader. Calhoun wrote that he believed "that the cause
of South Carolina is the cause of the Constitution, of liberty,
and of the Union. Our government is tending toward con-
solidation; and on consolidation corruption, oppression and
finally monarchy must closely press." And he announced
that "the reserved rights of the states" was the only rem-
edy. This was all the result of pique ; the country had
modified the grounds of South Carolina's complaints; and
she was threatening rebellion, not because of any new
grievance, but because an old one, which she had already
acquiesced in, was not reduced quite so much as she had
desired.

Be that as it way, Nullification dominated in her legisla-

796 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

ture; a state convention was summoned, which declared
the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 null and void; the legis-
lature called out the militia; and appeal to the Supreme
Court was forbidden. To the United States was given
the option of withdrawing its own law, or losing South
Carolina.

Jackson was ready for the emergency. He ordered Win-
field Scott to Charleston, and held troops in readiness; a
war vessel was stationed in the harbor, and a proclamation
called upon the people of South Carolina to mind what they
were about. The country at large warmly approved these
steps, and though South Carolina fiercely defied the nation,
there was a strong party of her own citizens who declared
their national loyalty.

While this matter was still seething in the caldron, the
President issued his regular message, in which he recom-
mended still further reduction of duties, the public debt
being now nearly paid off. He considered that the election
had showed that the people had had enough of protection.
This took more ground from under the feet of the Nullifi-
ers; but they were apparently bound to rebel in any case.
Hayne, who had been made governor of the state, prepared
to resist the Union government by force. Calhoun, elected
Senator, took his place in the Chamber. He privately stated
that South Carolina merely intended to resist civil process,
without bloodshed. But when Jackson asked Congress for
enlarged powers to deal with the situation, Calhoun began
to feel frightened for his personal safety ; it looked as if he
might end his career on the gallows. He sent word to his
constituents to be more cautious in their treasonable demon-
strations, and meanwhile he started a debate on the abstract
right of nullification. But here he was met, as Hayne had
been, by Webster, and with a similar result. The poison
with which he had meant to inoculate the veins of the coun-
try was antidoted by the expositions of the great New Eng-
lander. South Carolina stood alone among the states as a

EXTREMES 797

Nullifier; only Virginia tried to mediate between her and
Jackson, with the result of humiliating herself.

The " Force bill," as it was termed, supported by Webster,
passed the Senate, only John Tyler opposing it, while Clay,
Benton and Calhoun did not vote. Before it could be de-
cided on by the House, Clay, who being of Southern birth
with Northern affiliations, commanded confidence, proposed
in the general interest a compromise measure. His plan was
to scale down the duties periodically for ten years. Calhoun
eagerly welcomed this way out of the serious scrape he had
got into. A bill was before the House recommending a re-
duction of duties; a Congressman rose and moved that Clay's
bill be substituted for it. The House agreed, the bill thus
doctored was referred back to the Senate, which passed it,
together with the Force bill ; all being done by a sort of sur-
prise. South Carolina showed her "spirit" by passing an
act repealing Nullification, and then another, nullifying the
Force bill (which, of course, had been enacted only in order
to put down Nullification) ; as a man might stick his tongue
in his cheek after he had been thrashed.

Webster had not been a party to this compromise, and
had not approved of it. Jackson had accepted it reluctantly,
rather than appear bent on bloodshed. But it was a penny-
wise pound-foolish policy at best ; it would have been better
to crush South Carolina then and there, instead of allowing
her, on the pretext of a semi- victory, to disseminate her her-
esies among the other Southern states. Clay himself prac-
tically admitted that the success of his measure could be
but temporary ; but he was ambitious to appear as a pacifi-
cator, and to check Jackson. Calhoun retired into himself;
he was distrusted by the majority as a conspirator, but was
constantly supported by his own state ; and during his long
senatorial career he never ceased to plot the destruction of
the Union, by his own peculiar methods; cold, quietly ar-
gumentative, self-contained, relentless. He was a bloodless
intellect ; there is no more remarkable figure in our public

798

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

life. He had missed the supreme place of outward power
which he had coveted, but in revenge he exercised a far
deeper and wider power over the opinion and policy of the
South. To him, more than to any other, is due the Civil
War ; and the South, who idolized Calhoun, owes to him the
disastrous consequences which his doctrines induced her to
incur.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS

HE new regime, which was a continuation of the
old, began pleasantly, and with strong men in
abundance. In addition to Jackson, Clay and
Webster — The Preserver of the Union, The
Great Pacificator, and the Defender of the
Constitution, as they were respectively nick-
named— there were still Chief -justice Marshall, though this
was his last appearance at an inauguration, John Quincy
Adams, the ex-President, and of future Presidents, Van
Buren, Polk, Millard Fillmore, Tyler, Buchanan, and
Franklin Pierce; besides such men of mettle as Choate,
Everett, Horace Binney, Wise, Corwin, and Dave Crock-
ett. Calhoun, "the weird specter of an idea," as Schouler
calls him, was in his place in the Senate, and altogether, so
far as ability was concerned, Congress never showed to bet-
ter advantage. The difficulty was, that the ability was so
distributed that it got in its own way; there was a plentiful
lack of harmony and co-operation. The debates were sure
to be interesting, but the action would be small ; the attempt
to accomplish anything was likely to have no better success

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 799

than attended the efforts of the man who tried to lift himself
by his own waistband.

Jackson, however, thought he could do something; and
now that his policy had received so emphatic an indorse-
ment at the polls, he believed that he could come near dis-
pensing with Congress. He made three changes in his Cab-
inet, sending Livingstone to France and filling his place in
the State secretaryship with McLane, who was succeeded
by Duane as Treasury secretary. Duane was the son of a
former henchman of Jackson's, and the latter believed that
he could use him for his grand, secret purpose of eviscerat-
ing the Bank. Duane turned out a disappointment in this
regard; but the President, as we shall see, had another card
up his sleeve.

Meanwhile, by way of demonstrating the extent of his
popularity, he undertook a tour to the Eastern States, which,
in spite of certain accidents and mishaps, some of them of a
comical character, produced an immense enthusiasm among
the masses ; but it came to a sudden termination at Concord,
New Hampshire, where the President turned short about,
and was back in Washington in three days. The reason
put forward was that his health would not stand the strain
of so much hospitality; but a stronger reason was doubtless
his wish to get his campaign against the Bank in working
order betimes. Congress being now scattered, he had a free
hand ; and it presently became known that he meant to with-
draw from the Bank the government deposits, amounting to
more than half of the whole ; and, what was quite as serious
for the Bank, he would accompany this act by giving his
reasons for it : which were, in brief, that he did not consider
the money safe there ; he believed it was being used to cor-
rupt the country and Congress ; and he would not be a party
to nourishing the parasite which was absorbing the vital
forces of the nation. Of course, if this were credited, the
Bank would be discredited in proportion, and would be
obliged to wind up its affairs forthwith.

587978

8oo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Jackson took but few into his confidence; but one of
these had to be Duane, because only the Secretary of the
Treasury had the legal right to withdraw the deposits.
After much hesitation and anguish of mind, Duane de-
clined to do it; and Jackson thereupon dismissed him (he
refusing to resign) and put in his place a gentleman by the
name of Taney, who was a thorough-going advocate of anti-
Bank principles. Taney did his duty ; not actually drawing
out the whole nine millions in one lump, but providing for
its removal at a rate altogether too rapid to be comfortable
for Mr. Biddle. Biddle, however, had had some warning,
which he had utilized to the utmost of his power by con-
tracting his loans ; and this of course had an effect on the
country ; money became dear and wages low. The distress
was more in the anticipation of evil than in the actuality
of it; for the money taken out of the Bank was deposited
in State banks throughout the land, and only time seemed
needed to reassure business. Biddle issued a protest which
was intended to have a humorous and defiant twang to it ;
but this was another of Biddle's mistakes; his recognition of
the fact that Jackson was not a man to be jested with was
strangely delayed.

Clay, who had made himself the champion of the Bank
in Congress, was now to make the next move ; but he could
do little more than move a censure of the President; for it
was impossible to return the deposits to the Bank. The
Great Pacificator was likewise disgruntled by Jackson's
treatment of a land-bill which he had introduced in the last
days of the previous session, which proposed to distribute the
receipts from the sale of the public lands among the states,
pro rata. Benton had a plan to throw the lands open to
what was practically free settlement; and to allow those
states in which the unoccupied lands were situated to have
control of them. Jackson had kept Clay's bill, on the
ground that it had come in too late for him to decide upon
it ; he now sent it to Congress with his veto. The veto was

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 801

justifiable, though Jackson's grounds for imposing it may-
have been questionable; it was a job by which Clay had
hoped to influence votes, and the gift of so much money
to the states could not but have a demoralizing effect. It
would encourage speculation, if nothing more. The dispute
about this bill was but a preparatory skirmish to the main
attack on the President's bank policy, which now began;
and the contest lasted long after Jackson had left the
White House for good.

The advocates of the Bank in the Senate and House
made the most of the business alarm in the country, and
did whatever eloquence could to inflame it. Their success
was great; monster petitions were sent to Jackson asking
him to reverse his policy, and painting the approaching de-
struction of the financial interests in lurid colors; and the
petitions were supplemented by swarms of anxious persons
delegated to remonstrate by word of mouth. The friends of
Jackson began to fear that the pressure would be too strong ;
but he himself was immovable; he did not believe there
was any real distress; it was only the stock-jobbers and
moneyed cormorants who were in trouble, and the more of
such trouble the better. The arguments of Webster, the
impassioned appeals of Clay, had as little effect. The lat-
ter, addressing Van Bur en in his place, entreated him to go
to the President and bid him "pause and reflect that there
is a point beyond which human endurance cannot go ; and
let him not drive this brave, generous, and patriotic people
to despair." Van Buren listened with attention and grav-
ity ; but then, as if to indicate that though the heavens fall,
there was no reason why sensible men on the inside should
not continue to exist and be comfortable, he walked down
the aisle and begged the panting orator for a pinch of snuff;
after which he walked back and resumed his chair.

At the expense of much breath on both sides, the Senate
finally passed a resolution directing the return of the deposits
to the Bank. But the House reversed this ruling by a large

802 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

majority, reporting that the state banks ought to retain the
custody of the funds in question. The Senate, however,
passed Clay's resolution censuring the President ; but Benton
rose and moved for its removal from the records, and an-
nounced that he should repeat the motion from time to time
until it was adopted. There was great dispute over Jack-
son's nominations, Taney being rejected for the Treasury,
and Stevenson for England; upon which Jackson left the
latter post vacant for two years; when another Congress
confirmed Stevenson. At the end of this "panic session"
which had talked so much and done so little, the death of
Lafayette was announced, and the members went home
with crape on their arms. But in April, the Bank cam-
paign had been continued by a committee appointed to in-
vestigate the Bank's books. The Bank squirmed out of this
ordeal, and during the following winter obtained the ap-
pointment of a Senatorial committee for the same purpose,
which, for reasons best known to itself, sent in a very favor-
able report. But the suspicions of the people were confirmed,
and their verdict went the other way.

The foes of the Bank were somewhat embarrassed to find
a substitute for it; the swarm of state banks had obstructed
the stream of finance with a vast quantity of small paper
currency, which was discounted till no one could tell what
his money was really worth. Jackson finally attempted to
stop the issue of paper below five dollars in face value ; at
the same time causing gold and silver to be coined ; which
had a temporary good effect. But he understood little about
finance, and had no doubt been rash in tearing down one
system before any preparation had been made for a substi-
tute. He was attacked in many quarters ; and, on the other
hand, the resistance of the poor to the rich which he had
seemed to encourage found expression in riots, by which
much property was destroyed. In January, 1835, Law-
rence, a young English house-painter out of a job, fired
two pistols at Jackson as he was leaving the Capitol; both

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 803

shots missed ; Lawrence was knocked down, locked up, and
finally put in an insane asylum. This affair had no effect
upon Jackson's course; and the fall elections were on the
whole favorable to him. The deposits were not returned to
the Bank, and for the present the opposition seemed to have
no stomach for further fighting. At about this time, more-
over, the last installment of the national debt was paid off,
and Jackson's administration got the credit of it. His star
was still full high advanced.

But his success in defeating the aims of those arrayed
against him, had the result of uniting them in a new party,
professing to derive from the old Whigs of 1776, and adopt-
ing their designation. The idea took over the country, and
the Whigs seemed to crystallize almost at once into a homo-
geneous body. Both South and North contributed to its ele-
ments. On the other hand, a socialistic wing of the Jackson
Democracy was organized under the nickname of loco-focos,
bestowed on account of their having relighted with loco-foco
matches the gas which the Tammany Democrats had turned
out in the hall where both had assembled. Of the two great
parties, the Whigs, as has been remarked, had the better
men, though the Democrats had the better principles; but
the latter were handicapped, as regarded their personnel, by
the system of rotation in office, which made political ser.
vices instead of merit the condition of tenure. The Whigs
resembled the Federalists in their leanings to wealth and
education, but had learned to give more consideration to the
mass of the people ; and they soon showed some measure of
success. They gained support in several hitherto Demo-
cratic states. But Pennsylvania could not be won over ; and
the young William H. Seward was defeated for the gover-
norship of New York. This attitude of the two great states
finished the Bank, all except the ultimate ceremonies. But
the new party felt in itself the promise of future power, and
organized for future triumphs. Several Presidential candi-
dates were named by it in different states ; Webster in Mas-

804 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

sachusetts, McLean in Ohio, White in Georgia, Harrison in
Indiana and Ohio; and in favor of the latter, Webster with-
drew his name, Clay also supporting him. The Democrats
nominated Van Buren, who was Jackson's choice. During
the interval before the election, there was a singular out-
burst of disorder all over the country, expressing itself in
riots, lynchings, strikes, and all manner of riotous disturb-
ances; partly due no doubt to the young country "feeling its
oats," and discovering by experience the difference between
liberty and license; partly to the half-comprehended effect
upon ignorant minds of the Democratic ideas, which seemed
to deny rights to any except the common people. There was
also a hostile feeling against the Papacy, of which many ter-
rible things were prophesied ; and finally there was the far
more lasting element of trouble originating in the collisions
between slave sympathizers and their opponents. The new
abolition doctrines, of which William Lloyd Garrison was
the ablest and most unrelenting exponent, were to be a fire-
brand for more than twenty years to come. The abolition-
ists demanded instant extinction of slavery because it was
morally wrong ; and since the Constitution allowed the sys-
tem, they would do away with the Constitution, so far as
it commanded union; and were quite as insistent as the
Southerners themselves in their demand for separation. The
weight of opinion at the North was not in sympathy with
the logical extremists ; and the negro himself was almost as
much restricted in northern communities as he would have
been in the South. The lines of caste were as sharply
drawn. Garrison's paper, the "Liberator," was as uncom-
promising and unflattering as he could make it; and his
powers were anything but contemptible. His fierce arraign-
ment of the Constitution set the majority in the North, as
well as the whole South, against him. His importation of a
British anti-slavery speaker to address American audiences
(England having just emancipated the Jamaican negroes)
made things worse; there were furious popular outbreaks

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 805

against abolitionists, their meetings and their works; and
the slave seemed not to be profiting by his champions. In
October, 1835, Garrison was mobbed in Boston, and came
near being hanged by the populace; but he only set up his
press elsewhere, and continued his attacks. Sentiment was
inflamed to a degree hardly credible in these less ardent
times. Garrison's friends were quite as passionate as his
foes. A negro uprising in Virginia was ascribed to the in-
stigation of emancipation societies; and certainly the pam-
phlets which were circulated in the South were calculated to
inspire negro rebellions. The abolitionists offered no plan
for freeing slaves and at the same time compensating their
owners ; they declared the owners to be criminals who de-
served nothing but ruin. All this was very impractical; but
it had its good effect ; for had it not been for Garrison and
his followers, and the rage they aroused on both sides, the
collision between South and North might have been indefi-
nitely staved off, and with it our national relief from an
incubus from which South and North alike are to-day glad
to be free.

But if the abolitionists were extremists, the Southern
slaveholders were no less so. Their attitude was haughty
in the last degree; they worked the constitutional lash for
all it was worth. They cracked their whips and demanded
that abolitionists should be sent south to be hanged ; and they
introduced a gag law into Congress, forbidding any petitions
on the subject of slavery to be so much as considered. This
stirred up the venerable John Quincy Adams in defense of
the right of petition. He had none of the obsequiousness
which characterized too many of the public men at the
North, in their attitude toward Southern arrogance ; he did
not favor the abolitionists, but he would countenance no in-
fringement of liberty. "I hold the resolution a direct viola-
tion of the Constitution of the United States, of the rules
of this House, and of the rights of my constituents"; and
thenceforward he fought it until it was repealed. There

806 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was no stronger or braver man in Congress, and none of
honesty so unimpeachable. The Southerners feared to bring
in a vote of censure against him ; though at one time he
stood in peril of personal violence. In reply to the dogma
that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the
states, he declared that under the war-power in cases of civil
disorder, the government might interfere and control it.
And it was upon the basis of this assertion that the govern-
ment did interfere twenty-five years later.

The debt of the nation being paid, Clay contrived to use
the surplus to accomplish the principle of his land-distribu-
tion bill already referred to. It was agreed that the surplus
remaining in the Treasury should be deposited in the state
banks, ostensibly on terms similar to those in which the reg-
ular deposits had been transferred to them ; but as a matter
of fact, the money thus distributed remained the property of
the states; another proof that a surplus is not so good a
thing as a moderate national debt. Still, this method of
disposing of the surplus was better than to yield it to open
speculation, which was the growing vice of the time.

Arkansas was admitted as the twenty-fifth state in the
Union, open to slavery, and Michigan followed on the free
side. The election now coming on, Van Buren was found
to have a majority of forty-nine electoral votes; the Vice-
President, chosen by the legislature from several competi-
tors, was Richard M. Johnson. Webster got Massachu-
setts' fourteen votes, and South Carolina again cast her
votes for complimentary purposes only. Van Buren was
pledged to continue the policy of his predecessor ; and, con-
trary to expectation, the anti-slavery agitation had no influ-
ence on this contest. There could be no doubt that, despite
its faults, Jackson's administration was approved by the
country. He had been successful at home and abroad.
The French claims had been paid, not without belligerent
demonstrations on both sides; but Louis Philippe was too
insecure on his throne to risk a war, especially in defense of

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 807

a violated promise to pay. Other European nations settled
their claims with us, or entered into friendly business rela-
tions, and commerce increased. Treaties were made with
the Spanish- American republics, though great distrust was
felt as to the stability of these little states, and the tempta-
tion to extend our boundaries was perceptible. For Jackson,
indeed, it had been a temptation and something more. The
Texas affair, whose first chapters date back fifteen years or
more before this time, affords the first illustration of an an-
nexation policy. The South had wished the region to be
incorporated as a slave state; but Monroe had wisely pre-
vented it. It was now a province of Mexico. Mexico her-
self was too feeble a state to secure respect. But the eastern
boundary between Texas and the United States had been
fixed at the Sabine River by a treaty negotiated by Clay in
1831. It was Jackson's purpose to keep freedom and slavery
balanced. In 1835 he proposed to Mexico to sell not only
Texas, but California; but Santa Anna, the Mexican Presi-
dent, refused. Meanwhile a large number of American col-
onists were settled in Texas, and had intimated their desire
for annexation to the United States; this was regarded in
the North as a plot to add slaveholding states to the Union.
On the other hand, the Mexican government adopted meas-
ures which exasperated the American settlers ; and under the
leadership of Sam Houston, they established a government
at Austin, and received material aid from Southern slave-
holders. In the battle of San Jacinto, following the mas-
sacre of the Alamo, Santa Anna was defeated and taken
prisoner. Jackson took a favorable view of all this, and
sent United States troops to keep order. To avoid the ap-
pearance of forcing an infraction of the treaty, a number of
old spoliation claims were revived, in settlement of which
Texas might be seized. A rupture with the Mexican gov-
ernment was thus brought about, and all made ready for
the next step ; which, however, had to be left for Van Buren
to make, since Jackson's tenure of power was now at its

8o8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

end. It is impossible not to admit that the conduct of this
affair does not reflect credit upon Jackson's reputation for
candor. The instinct for conquest of the soldier over-
came the scruples which should have controlled the civil
magistrate.

The finances of the country were left in a muddle which
Jackson himself could neither comprehend nor control. The
state banks were multiplied, and speculation, especially in
western lands, was unrestrained. Cities were laid out on
paper, and land worth little or nothing per acre was sold at
a good price per front foot. Large importations of foreign
goods were paid for in bullion, which was thus sent out of
the country; and a circular issued by Jackson shortly before
the end of his term to pay for public lands in hard money
caused the gold and silver remaining to find its way into
the Treasury. A panic and failures were inevitable ; eight
states failed, property lost value, and trade was arrested.
Van Buren inherited this legacy of disaster, and bore the
brunt of it; for it had not declared itself at the time Jackson
withdrew.

Jackson was an extraordinary man ; but his fortune was
at least as extraordinary as he; no dreamer of romances
would have trusted his imagination to invent such a man
ruling in such a way over free America. He was as abso-
lute as any despot; yet he was a champion of the Constitu-
tion and a true patriot; an illiterate man, in the conven-
tional sense ; and yet with as able an intellect, and as keen
an insight into many political mill-stones, as men of far
hi -her culture. He never made a mistake with the people;
what he did, they liked, and what he liked, they supported.
It did not seem to make much difference what views he
held ; they were certain to be indorsed by the public, if for
no better reason, because Jackson held them. His work
was often good; but the influence of his example in our
politics cannot be commended. He made sycophancy an
institution, because his subordinates feared him; he encour-

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 809

aged the lower elements of society, because he hated too
narrowly the pretensions of wealth and society. He would
not admit that there could be two sides to a question ; there
was but one side, and he was always on it. He made every-
thing personal ; and in this way he stamped his own person-
ality so deeply upon history, that the impression can never
be effaced; and yet, so singular was he, that few of his
biographers claim fully to understand him. He was frank
and blunt, passionate and trenchant; and yet some of the
men who were nearest him declare that he was an actor,
politic, and crafty. It is certain that he could dissimulate;
he would not have been so successful a soldier had he not
possessed the faculty of strategy. But like all men of great
caliber, he had two men in him, one or the other of which
predominated at different times, without any deliberate pur-
pose of duplicity. So strong a man did not need to be a dis-
simulator, save as it were on the inspiration of the moment,
when he might be partly moved by a grim sense of humor.
That narrow brain of his was also deep, and he enjoyed out-
maneuvering his antagonists as well as crushing them. No
one who has looked into the intricacies of public life can have
failed to observe how almost impossible it often is for the man
in ostensible authority to force his purpose through the myriad
obstacles and "pressures" which conflicting and plotting inter-
ests supply ; but Jackson came as near doing it as any ruler of
whom there is record, even though he were a despot in his own
right, instead of only the chief magistrate of a free people.

Van Buren inaugurated an epoch of smaller men, not to
be broken until Lincoln entered the "White House. He was,
apparently, a sincere hero- worshiper ; and Jackson was the
god of his idolatry, and the acknowledged model whose ex-
ample it was his best ambition humbly to imitate. A more
independent or less politic man might have been offended at
the pains Jackson took to smooth the way for him ; but Van
Buren expressed only gratitude ; as if a puppet should praise
the hand which pulled its strings.

810 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The first thing which Fate brought to pass upon the new
President's amiable administration was that panic of 1837
to which we have already alluded. In this calamity every
element which could render it complete seemed to combine ;
there was nothing to redeem the situation far or near ; the
failure of the crops made it necessary even to purchase grain
abroad. The condition of finance was such that the mind
shudders to contemplate it; legislatures were forced to pass
acts legalizing suspension; not a bank in the country paid
bullion. The pet banks which had received the national
deposits fared no better than the rest. There seemed to be
no money left in the world ; notes might be paid for debts,
and the next day the bank issuing them might fail. On the
other hand, Congress and the President received their sal-
aries in gold; which was not calculated to improve their
popularity in the country. Van Buren was compelled to call
an extra session to take counsel on the predicament.

To Congress, after reciting the condition of things, he
proposed the measure which is his chief title to fame, though
its effect upon himself was to defeat his political aspirations.
He pointed out the evils inseparable from an alliance of any
sort between banks and the government, and advocated
abolishing such alliance altogether. In place of it, he would
create an independent treasury, or, as it has come to be
called, a sub-treasury, where the funds of the government
could find a safe and convenient asylum. It was a good
plan, as experience has proved ; but it was new to those before
whom it was laid, and their first instinct was to distrust it.
It would give the government too much power, and would
lock up in vaults bullion which ought to be circulating in the
country. Moreover, the plan seemed incomplete ; it was one
end of a remedy, with the other left to conjecture. What
should be done to secure a sound national currency? Further,
it was suspected that the plan might be a disguised attack
upon all banks; and that the proposed issue of treasury notes
would renew the paper troubles under another form. The

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 811

real difficulty in this and other affairs of Yan Buren's ad-
ministration, was the lack of confidence in its political integ-
rity— a distrust which was quite as unjustifiable, to say the
least, as it would have been if directed toward his predeces-
sor. Van Buren was so artful a manager that it was hard
to believe he would draw the line this side of unscrupulous-
ness. The fact was, that Van Buren meant to be Jackson
without Jackson's faults ; but it would seem that Jackson's
faults had been half the secret of his success ; and when those
were eliminated, the spell of Jacksonian Democracy lost its
power.

This sub-treasury scheme, and the necessary retention of
the next installment of the surplus promised to the banks,
gave the new Whigs a desirable grievance on which to appeal
to the people. The party was started with great enthusiasm,
though they were obliged to restrict themselves to criticism
rather than to suggest remedies. All the nice, clean, respect-
able folks belonged to it, with monopolies and protection in
their train; it had friends in the South, and its advocacy
of a national government was agreeable. Besides, it had
the benefit of the distaste for the hard-handed Democracy
which was beginning to be felt by natural reaction. A good
issue was all that was needed to carry the country. On the
other hand, Calhoun created a surprise by abandoning his
hollow alliance with Clay, and advocating "unbanking the
banks' ' ; he called the connection of government with banks
an "unholy alliance. " Clay and Webster arraigned the sub-
treasury plan as a first step toward an Executive Bank, with
tyranny as its aim. But the corrupt collapse of Biddle's
United States Bank, which was now accomplishing, showed
that Jackson and Van Buren were right in the stand they
had taken against it, and was a practical reply to the elo-
quence of the orators on the other side.

But it was the slavery question which, in spite of all
efforts to down it, persisted in raising its threatening front
in Congress and the country. The Abolitionists had made

812 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the conscience of the North uneasy, and divided their coun-
cils, while antagonizing the South to an intense degree. The
Democrats were controlled by the South; the Whigs were
opposed to slavery extension, or to the domination of the
slavery cause, but could not go the length of the Abolition-
ists, who were ready to surrender the Constitution on ab-
stract moral grounds. Abstract right was all very well;
but did a man owe nothing to the Constitution, and to the
Union which it demanded? Was one man justified in requir-
ing another to conform to his own moral principles or preju-
dices? The Abolitionists troubled themselves little about
arguments ; slavery must be abolished, Union or no Union.
There was a discrimination to be observed here ; we are not
yet far enough advanced in human brotherhood to be able
to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations, with a view to
improving them, unless, as recently in Cuba, we find a deca-
dent and barbarous nation inflicting savage cruelties upon
a people struggling for freedom at our very doors. But a
nation has a right to regulate, within limits, the conduct
of its own citizens, when it plainly outrages morality, and
threatens the common weal. For the nation is a homogene-
ous body, in which the sickness of one part affects all. If
slavery was in itself an evil and a menace, the United States
had a right to restrain or extirpate it ; and it was only be-
cause the United States was composed of separate states that
this right was obscured. The Southern states took the
ground of separate nations, and based their claims thereon.
But whatever political hair-splitting might pretend, the ef-
fect upon our free states of slavery in our slave states was
utterly different from what would be upon us the effect of
slavery in a nation really foreign. Our Congress was com-
posed of representatives from all states ; and as it was evi-
dent that slavery produced radical divergences in points
of national policy, either government must be carried on by
a system of compromises, with all the dangers and obstruc-
tions which that involves; or one party must finally over-

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 813

come and dominate the other; or the two must part. At
present, we were trying the compromise alternative : for the
rest, although it was possible for the North to dominate
the South, the contrary was not possible, since the physical
conditions at the North did not admit of slave labor being
used there, all questions of morality aside; whereas in the
South free labor might succeed. The alternative of separa-
tion remained ; but that must be by common agreement of
all parties; that agreement wanting, it might be accom-
plished by force, provided the force available were sufficient
for the purpose. It turned out not to be sufficient, when the
experiment was tried. But was the South justified in trying
the experiment? The answer, on general principles, must be
in the affirmative. She had a fair chance of success, and
no further justification has ever been deemed necessary,
when one body of people wished to divide itself from another.
The Constitution could not stand in the way ; treaties and
paper compacts of all kinds are outgrown and cast aside
every day ; they are valid so long as they are useful, and no
longer. Our Constitution has lasted because its provisions
are far-seeing and sensible, and because it admits of remod-
eling as circumstances may require. But the right of the
South to secede — if it could— was confused with a question
quite distinct from it : the question whether she had a right
to secede in order to continue slavery. Admitting slavery
to be wrong, however convenient, is any people justified in
bringing on a devastating war for the sake of supporting
a wrong? The answer, on moral grounds, must be in the
negative. But should the South therefore be condemned?
How often, in the history of the world, has a nation molded
its national policy against its interests, out of respect for the
moral law? Besides, the South had been brought to believe
that slavery was not wrong ; they quoted Holy Writ in its
support, and were furnished by Calhoun and others with
many special reasons in addition. The very fact that it was
assailed blinded them to its faults. They would fight for it

814 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

not only as a matter of right, but of affection also— as for a
beloved thing which had been attacked. Upon the whole,
we may relieve ourselves of the apprehension that several
million inhabitants of this country were any worse than the
other millions, because they rebelled. They were subjects of
human nature and creatures of circumstance, like all other
sons of Adam; and Providence used them in its own ways
for purposes greater than either they or we could know.

As for the Abolitionists, they cannot be praised for
political sagacity ; but they did not covet that sort of praise.
They deserve the name of martyrs to their moral convic-
tions; some of them, like Lovejoy, were called upon to shed
their life-blood literally in defense of their opinions; others,
like Jonathan Cilley, were shot on the "field of honor" be-
cause they ventured to criticise Southern views— though
Cilley was not an Abolitionist in any rabid sense of the term;
he was simply not an advocate of slavery. No doubt the
Abolitionists exasperated the South exceedingly. But, on
the other hand, the Southerners were altogether too haughty
and touchy, and too incautious in their expressions of scorn
and contempt for the Northerners. They were intolerant to
an almost incredible degree; and the patience the North-
erners often showed is only less remarkable. They would
not permit the subject of slavery to be alluded to or hinted
at, in their presence. It was something holy, sacred— or
perhaps it was a raw sore. This sensitiveness is almost
unique in political records, and could be accounted for in
various ways. Its origin is probably to be found in the
moral question involved ; men quarreled about it just as they
do about religious creeds ; and nobody, not engaged in the
discussion, can understand why they so quickly lose their
tempers.

Another attempt to annex the free state of Texas (as it
now called itself) failed to gain government support; but
arrangements were made for a board of arbitration to decide
upon the American claims against Mexico. A decision was

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 815

also wanted regarding the precise location of our Maine
boundary line ; and quarrels on this point were complicated
by a petty rebellion in Canada, which led some hasty spirits
to imagine, quite erroneously, that Canada wished to join
our Union. In the South, Osceola, after a spirited resist-
ance to our prolonged effort to put down the Seminoles, was
captured, and soon after died in prison ; but the war lingered
along several years more. The war was never popular, and
cost more than it was worth; and Van Buren, as usual, got
all the blame. The sub-treasury bill finally passed, on the
30th of June, 1840, and was artfully approved by the Presi-
dent on the Fourth of July ; but the financial and business
condition was still gloomy. But the most important occur-
rence of the time had been the Whig Convention which
assembled in December, 1839, at Harrisburg in Pennsyl-
vania, with Barbour in the chair. Whom would they nom-
inate for the Presidency? Clay was the most prominent
candidate ; but he had been engaged in so many battles that
it seemed doubtful if he could carry the election. Harrison
and Winfield Scott were the alternative men ; for Webster
had no sure following except in his own section. After
three days' voting, Harrison was chosen, and Tyler, the
friend of Clay, was given the second place, more out of com-
pliment to the latter than on his own account ; and also to
please Southern delegates. Clay had told his friends to sac-
rifice him if the good of the party demanded it ; but he was
bitterly disappointed, nevertheless, to be taken at his word.
Seward was accused of having aided in defeating him, in
combination with his allies Horace Greeley and Thurlow
Weed, who were at the convention ; but in truth it was the
common sense of the majority of the convention ; and there
probably never had been a moment in his whole career when
Clay could have reasonably counted on the united support
of the country. He could see that it was better to be right
than to be President ; but it was possible to be too brilliant
to be President, and, certainly, to be too fertile in compro*

816 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

mises.— Large defections from the Democrats increased the
strength of the party, till in spite of the advantage of posi-
tion possessed by the Democrats, and the prestige of past
success, the Whigs seemed to have the people.

The Democrats of course nominated Van Buren; they
had no one else, and no one could have served their turn
better. The campaign had no very sharp issues; the best
issue for the Whigs seemed to be that they were new and
enthusiastic ; but the ardor of the combatants has never been
surpassed, and there was hardly a voter in the land who did
not cast his vote. The unique spectacle was presented of
vast open-air political gatherings where not the voters only,
but their wives and children, congregated to see, hear and
shout. Enormous processions moved to and fro; they car-
ried emblems of their cause, and mottoes, and they shouted
refrains; all the fine young fellows in America seemed to be
Whigs, and all confident of victory. They were tired of the
autocrat; they wanted a strong but quiet and law-abiding
man, who had a good temper and could recognize other ele-
ments in the government besides the Executive. The rare
assortment of famous orators which the country possessed
at this time was turned loose upon the crowds, and made
them tenfold more enthusiastic and confident than ever.
The nation may be said to have enjoyed this campaign; and
for many a year afterward one might hear veterans recall-
ing to one another, with chuckles, the glorious excitement
of those days, when their throats were hoarse with shouting
"Tippecanoe, and Tyler too!" And what lakes of hard
cider were drunk out of pure patriotism, and what cities of
log cabins overspread the landscape ! What caricatures also,
in which the hard-handed Democrats found themselves
figured by little Matty Van Buren, in kid gloves and a
gilded coach, while the leader of the supposed aristocracy
was a plain soldier farmer, who worked with his hands and
lived poor and simple. But the fact was that the sentiment
of the nation was wholly against aristocracy, and any intima-

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 817

tion of an opposite feeling always involved the party betray-
ing it in disaster. The Whigs, so far from suffering for lack
of an issue, actually made capital out of their deficiency ;
they had the more leisure for hooting down their adversaries.
The final result of it all was a stupendous victory for the
Whigs, who beat the Democrats by two hundred and thirty-
four votes against sixty. A third party, called the Liberty
Party, also polled a few votes here and there for itself; it
was supposed to be constituted of the moral reformers who
were becoming singularly numerous about this time ; every
ism having its followers, from Transcendentalism down.
The Liberty Party was to be heard from again later.

Van Buren took his defeat with his usual steadiness, and
his next message was the best and boldest he ever wrote.
He warned against renewing the public debt, a large part
of which would be held by foreign investors ; and the state
debts were already threatened in some places with repudia-
tion. He renewed the argument against the National Bank ;
and as if to accent his words, that sinister institution, with
Biddle at its head, found in its lowest deep a lower deep to
fall into ; its final collapse, followed by the revelation of more
than its worst enemies had charged of rascality and rotten-
ness, took place in 1841. Biddle lingered three years longer,
and then died of mortification rather than shame; for he
was too callous in iniquity to feel the latter.

Van Buren began life as the son of a poor farmer, and
reached the Presidency. He was not the creature of chance,
but of hard work and great sagacity ; he had a wonderful
brain, and many great virtues; and if he had vices, they
were not of such a character as to be known. He had been
trained in early life by Aaron Burr, and there were no arts
of management with which he was not familiar ; he prob-
ably designed to lift himself to the top by such arts, and by
the help of greater men, such as Jackson ; and he succeeded.
But if, as was also probable, he meant, on attaining the
supreme place, to lay aside all his tricks of fence and in-
U.S.— 35 Vol. III.

818 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

trigue, and show himself as a man of independent convictions
and sincere character, he failed ; because the reputation of a
lifetime could not be dissipated in four years ; and his evil
inheritance from Jackson was too much to carry off. An-
other handicap from which he suffered was his small stature
and plump figure, which made it impossible to take him
seriously; he may have been no shorter, and no plumper, .
than the great Napoleon ; but he did not produce the same
effect on beholders. He was too polite, soft-spoken, and too
deft a steersman. Such men are very useful in politics, and
when they are reasonably honest, as Van Buren certainly
was, they may be something more. Van Buren's sub-treas-
ury scheme was sound statesmanship, separating as it did
private from public finance. But he had contrived to avoid
personal quarrels all his life; he had been friendly to every-
body; and finally no one believed he was the friend of
anybody, and none stood his friend at the critical hour.
And what good he accomplished was not credited to him,
and was not recognized during his tenure of power. His
defeat on the occasion of this first appeal for re-election was
emphasized by the refusal of the people to reinstate him on
the other two occasions when he was nominated for the
Presidency; their "sober second thought" had no reversal
for him. But he lived to be eighty years old, and doubtless
reconciled himself to a fate which after all was not so bad
for a poor farmer's boy!

Besides the steam-engine and the steamboat, science
added to the breadth of life by the daguerreotype and the
electric telegraph, at this period; for though Morse's first
telegraph line was not opened till 1844, his patent was
granted in 1837. Exploration was carried on chiefly by the
Wilkes expedition, which sailed nearly ninety thousand
miles, and investigated tropic islands and polar snows.
Literature was beginning to be an appreciable quantity
among us. in spite of the competition of pirated books from
England ; Emerson had published his earlier essays, which

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 819

are still as much read as ever, and better understood ; Bryant
and Longfellow had proved that Americans could be poets.
Irving' s reputation was already of long standing; Cooper
was our only great novelist so far; though a young man
named Nathaniel Hawthorne had become known to a few
as showing promise in some short tales and sketches. Ben-
nett had founded his newspaper, and Hoe, the inventor of
steam-presses, was led thereto by the wearisomeness of work-
ing the press of his little sheet, "The Sun," by hand. Mean-
while honest and doctrinaire Horace Greeley had set the
"Tribune" going; and American journalism was an accom-
plished fact, though little witting of what it was to be-
come. In short, the gate of modern times was swinging
ajar.

This is a country of contrasts; but there had been no
greater contrast between successive Presidents than that be-
tween Harrison and his predecessor. Van Buren had spent
his life amid policies, stratagems and intrigues, seeing the
seamy side of human nature, and deprived of all possibility
of keeping in touch with natural impulses and sincere feel-
ings. He had climbed upward by art and interest, by cun-
ning compromises and concessions; he had regarded men as
instruments, and life as a calculation. But Harrison was
a countryman; a soldier of proved quality, but only acci-
dentally and incidentally, because circumstance compelled
it. He was transparent and honest, with a warm heart
and a tender conscience; endowed with manly dignity, and
strength of will and self-respect, which could call to order
even the impatient audacity of Clay ; but approachable by
all, kindly, friendly; desirous only to do good to his coun-
try, and leave a spotless record behind him. His gray hair
and clear dark eyes gave his aspect a certain distinction
which was fully carried out by the quality of his mind and
character; he had a strength and ability which old politi-
cians like Clay and Webster hardly gave him credit for,
finding him below the mark in certain superficial attributes

820 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of the public man. But after all we can but surmise what
Harrison might have accomplished ; he had barely grasped
the wand of office, when he fell.

He had lacked but two years of fulfilling the allotted
span of man when he came to Washington; nor would he
have survived so long, but for his temperate outdoor life in
his Ohio home ; for his constitution had never been robust.
His campaign, as we have seen, had been unusually excit-
ing, and he had several times addressed the people. He
made the journey to Washington at an inclement season,
with the accompaniments of public demonstrations along
the way, to which he responded heartily, as his nature
prompted. When he reached the capital, the pressure on
his strength was increased instead of being relaxed ; the day
of inauguration was cold and gloomy, and he spoke in the
open air for an hour. His address was friendly and concili-
ating in tone, and gave promise of purity and independence
in administration ; he would abate abuse of patronage, would
not invade Southern susceptibilities, would not advocate a
currency exclusively metallic. In the manner and general
tone, rather than in special phrases, he made it evident that
he intended to do good and dispense justice to all. Even his
opponents trusted him and honored him.

Immediately began the scramble for place, in which the
Whigs showed themselves full as active as the Democrats
had been, though during the campaign they had been noisy
in denouncing the spoils system. But it might be argued
that after a spoils system has been once begun, it can never
end ; for if a man gets an office, not for merit but for service
done, he should be ousted at the first opportunity — which
would of course be when the next change of party occurred.
But inasmuch as his successor is no better than he, the
vicious routine can never end. As a matter of fact, it is
a constant surprise, not that our civil service is so bad, but
that it is no worse ; the men who clamor for office (and no
others get it) being uniformly the least fitted to receive it

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 821

There must be a great deal of latent virtue in the body
corporate.

Harrison offered the portfolio of State to Clay, who de-
clined it, but recommended two of his friends for places in
the Cabinet. Harrison then gave Webster the option of
being either State or Treasury secretary, and he took the
former. Webster and Clay were already rivals for that
which neither would ever attain. But they had combined to
put Harrison in the saddle, and he, perhaps in acknowledg-
ment of their service, pledged himself in his inaugural not
to seek a second nomination. He might have spared him-
self that trouble. — The other men in the Cabinet, though
respectable, possessed no marked ability; they were fairly
competent to their duties.

From sunrise till midnight the President was kept busy
tossing the morsels of patronage to the roaring pack of wild
animals who surged round him. There were more offices
than ever before, and more applicants for each office; and
every Congressman had his group of friends to recommend.
Harrison worked along systematically and intelligently,
doing the best he could. On the 17th of March he con-
vened an extra session for the last of May ; but about the
first of April he caught a chill from careless exposure,
which his frame lacked vitality to resist. It developed into
pneumonia, and he died on the 4th of the month. "Sir,"
said he, addressing some imaginary interlocutor as he lay
on the brink of the next world, "I wish you to understand
the true principles of the government ; I wish them carried
out; I ask no more."

His death startled and saddened the nation. He was the
first President who had died with his term uncompleted;
and he was the object of a more widespread personal affec-
tion than most public men. All that could be done was to
give him a great funeral; thousands followed in the train;
there was complaining of bugles and trample of muffled
drums, and a black, open car, with white horses and heaps

822 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of mounded flowers. In the hearse lay the body of a poor
country gentleman, whom a nation had trusted, whom they
had lifted to the highest place in their gift, and for whom
they heartily grieved. He was buried in the cemetery of
Congress; but afterward, at his friends' request, his body
was removed to his home at North Bend on the Ohio, a
more fitting resting place for a President who was so little
of a politician.

Among those who followed the procession was John
Tyler, the former Vice-President, now President by the
grace of God. He had come post-haste from Virginia on
learning the news which elevated him to the unhoped-for
dignity. He continued the Cabinet in their places, and his
address seemed to pledge him to carry out the dead man's
policy. He promised that there should be no further war
between the government and the currency. In short, his
attitude was just what it ought to have been, and the nation
felt relieved from a momentary anxiety. Tyler was Harri-
son over again, mutato nomine. But gentlemen in Con-
gress, who knew him better, may have suspended their full
confidence until further developments.

In fact, however, no one at this time knew Tyler ; he did
not know himself. He found himself suddenly in the place
of power, and was at first subdued by the shock ; his nature
was susceptible of fine impressions, and he may have told
himself that this was a great opportunity vouchsafed by
Providence, of which he would make the highest use he
could. His record showed him to be a man who had taken
no decided or irrevocable line on prominent questions ; either
from caution or from lack of conviction, he had kept a mid-
dle course, though not without occasional reproach of bad
faith, which he had zealously sought to repel. But he was
now called upon to fill one of the most conspicuous positions
in the world, where he must avouch himself one thing or
the other; a position to which he had not been elected, and
which he entered under unique circumstances. His first in-

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 823

stinct, natural to one of his temperament, was to deprecate
criticism, and conciliate public opinion ; afterward he would
review his situation more coolly, and map out his plans.

Tyler was a tall, slight, fair man, with delicate brown
hair, which he wore rather long ; he was of good family, and
always showed high breeding in his manners, which were
also affable and attractive, especially to women. He thought
well of himself, physically, mentally and morally; and be-
lieved that he had a very sensitive conscience. His mind
ran to fine discriminations, to hair-splitting; and this quality
he found useful in accounting to himself for his own con-
duct, and squaring it with his rule of right and honor. He
could, so to say, argue one thing into another, and thus es-
tablish an apparent consistency between acts which a more
straightforward moralist would have called irreconcilable.
Thus far in life he had been free from grave responsibilities,
and his views of public matters had been colored by circum-
stances, and by his own chance predilections ; he saw some
things in Democracy that he liked, and accepted other things
which belonged to the Whig policy. He was independent ;
there was no reason why he should not be so — until the time
should come when his further political career depended upon
his allying himself finally with one side or the other. When
that time should come, he would still have the option of
remaining independent and keeping out of responsibilities;
or of accepting responsibilities and respecting allegiance to
party.

In accepting the office of Vice-President, he had not felt
that this epoch of final choice had arrived. He belonged
to that wing of the Whig party which was nearest to the
moderate wing of the Democratic party; it was of no con-
sequence, because the office itself carried no weight. He
might have been a Democratic Vice-President almost as well
as a Whig one. But he was now President, and there could
be no half measures. If he felt that he could not be a true
Whig, it was his duty to resign. If he was not willing to

824 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

carry out the policy of Harrison, and to act in harmony with
the Whig majority in the legislature, he had no business in
the White House.

But it was easy for a hair-splitter like Tyler to persuade
himself that the alternative was not so sharp as this; and
if he hesitated himself, there was no lack of advisers to
strengthen his resolution. A little knot of Virginians, to
whom Clay gave the name of the corporal's guard, soon
attached itself to him, and helped him to make up his mind,
and to gloss over his scruples. Of this group, Wise and
Beverly Tucker were the ablest. Under their ministrations,
his first timidity gradually gave way. He was after all a
Southerner and a slaveholder; that was in his nature; and
when a conflict between the nature and the mental conclu-
sion occurs, nature prevails, and the mind proceeds to con-
firm its action. Nature, in this case, was also on the side of
self-interest, and of personal feeling. Tyler suddenly real-
ized that he was in a position of supreme power, if he chose
to make the most of it ; and he at the same time conceived
the ambition to be re-elected at the end of his term, on his
own merits, and thus do away with the stigma of having
been only an accidental President. The ambition was in
itself legitimate; although he had vehemently declared
against the principle of a second term, before it occurred
to him that he might get it.

Tyler could also reflect that there was nothing wrong in
being moderate ; and between moderation and treason, in a
party man, the line is not always easily drawn. But a still
stronger temptation to abandon the Whigs was found in the
rivalry between Tyler and Henry Clay, who arrogated to
himself, not without good reason, the real leadership of the
party, and who obviously expected Tyler to carry out his
commands. Tyler and Clay had been friends for twenty
years; but when Clay called upon Tyler, a month after
Harrison's death, and refused to support Tyler's scheme of
a district bank, they quarreled, and were thenceforth ene-

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 825

mies. Tyler knew that Clay was the next candidate for
President in 1844; and he resolved that he would defeat him
for the prize. He was sure that he could count upon the
support of the South, and he believed that he could win
more in the North than Clay could. He could harmonize
the parties ; or he could make a party of his own and lead
it to victory. Thus, partly by accident, partly by selfish
ambition and private pique, and partly by the urgency of
others, Tyler was forced into an attitude which history has
failed to approve. He betrayed the party by which he had
been placed in power, and his administration was a contin-
ual battle between Congress and himself, in which neither
achieved any decisive victory.

As a dramatic episode, this administration is full of
human interest ; for on either side of Tyler were contending
Clay and Webster. Webster's course is not readily recon-
ciled with unselfish desire for the public welfare; and his
behavior was less frank than Clay's, who never disguised
that the Presidency was his goal. Webster was Tyler's
Secretary of State, and he defended his financial policy, and
took his part against -Clay ; after all the rest of the Cabinet
had resigned, he remained, ostensibly in order to conclude
delicate negotiations with England, with whom we were on
the brink of war over the questions of the northeast bound-
ary, and the right of search in the slave-trade. Edward
Everett was our representative in England, and Lord Ash-
burton, son of Baring the banker, came to Washington with
full powers to settle the difficulty or to declare a settlement
impossible. It was finally arranged, creditably to both
sides, but Webster still lingered in the Cabinet. He hoped
to improve opportunities to defeat Clay ; but events were not
to be controlled. Tyler's main fight with Congress was over
the financial problem ; expedients to supply the place of the
defunct United States Bank were suggested and defeated.
Clay had one plan, Tyler another ; Congress went far toward
meeting Tyler's views, on the promise, given by him, that

826 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

he would immediately sign the amended bill ; but he broke
his pledge, and vetoed it. His vetoes were numerous, and
the necessary two-thirds majority to pass bills over his veto
could not be secured, in the peculiar state of parties. At
length he was formally read out of his party; he tried to
form another by inviting men from both sides ; but neither
the Democrats nor the Whigs would accept his overtures.
In March, 1842, Clay bade farewell to Congress in a fare-
well speech, it being his intention never again to sit in the
body; though in fact he returned seven years later under
Fillmore. He was deeply moved, and he moved others ; the
Senate adjourned till the next day, and Calhoun, Clay's
former friend, who had been estranged from him for five
years, met him as he left the Chamber, with outstretched
hands, and the two great men embraced each other with a
common impulse. It is seldom, in public affairs, that the
great men of the country are on the same side; they oppose
one another, and thus defeat one another's power for good.
In the Colonial and Revolutionary days, the hostility of
England banded our leaders all together in one cause, and
we have seen the results, even against the greatest odds;
but now, when the Republic was established, and the coun-
try developed and capable of the highest prosperity, we see
its possibilities hampered by the feuds of those who were
most highly endowed to benefit it. Their mutual jealousies
and personal ambitions made them forget their duty. His-
tory must take note of these men, and ignore to a great
extent the mass of the population, who knew little of their
disputes, successes and failures, and lived from day to day
busied with their private concerns. Attempts have indeed
been made to write the history of the people, and of other
peoples besides the American ; but it is found impossible to
make the story clear without the annals of the Presidents
and the monarchs, their doings and vicissitudes. For
through them alone does the story advance, and the se-
quence of cause and effect appear. The people, for whose

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 827

sake the rulers exist, and by whom they are created, serve
but as the side scenes and background of the tale. We can
depict them in broad lines ; we can note the changes of cos-
tume and manners from generation to generation; we can
brighten the scene with anecdotes and apologues ; but these
do but serve, in the end, to give substance and firmness to
our understanding of the dominant and guiding few. To
however great a degree we extend our canvas and multiply
our figures, the result is the same. We cannot but feel some
resentment at the restriction, remembering how much more
agreeable or not less inthralling would be many a tale of
private experience which never can reach history's page.
But in truth, history must body forth the state and make
of it the semblance of a living entity; and discipline her
pen to mark only those features which concern the state's
character and acts. The novelist holds the other field, and
the future student of mankind will perhaps not assign him
the second place.

Tyler was misunderstood even by his corporal's guard;
they thought him easier to manage than he was. His facile
manner did not prevent him from manifesting a stubborn
fiber of determination ; upon his own plane, and in his own
depth, he would do as he pleased. He had an emotional
but shallow nature; tending to the use of strong adjectives
in public and private utterances, but his tears and smiles
came from no great depth, and were soon forgotten. His
heart may have amused him, but it never troubled him, and
it never controlled his policy. But it is the heart which
gives insight; and this is what Tyler lacked. He saw rea-
sons and distinctions in abundance; but he did not under
stand the temper or desires of the nation, nor comprehend
their opinion of him. He was most disposed to believe what
pleased his self-esteem most , he was active, skillful, resource-
ful, and airily cheerful, and became constantly less scrupu-
lous about the means he employed to prevail. He thought
to use Webster to help him crush Clay; but he meant to get

823 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

rid of Webster himself as soon as he had served his turn.
"What precisely was his relation to Calhoun cannot be cer-
tainly known ; but it is probable that the great South Caro-
linian furnished him with whatever distinct policy he had.
The true character of his designs was not fully fathomed
until the Texas question reappeared; it then became evi-
dent that Tyler intended to back its admission as a slave
territory, and the North finally turned its back on him.
It was a curious result after the generous enthusiasm of
the Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too campaign.

The revision of the tariff was one of the measures which
were dear to the Whigs, but Tyler vetoed two of their bills,
and the compromise bill which received his signature favored
the Nullification party. The compromise tariff bill which
Clay had devised years before had been of benefit to manu-
facturers and to the whole country; and in the South the
value of the cotton crop had so increased that the saying
" Cotton is King" passed into a proverb. But Clay's bill had
provided that the scaling down of duties should be suddenly
accelerated at the end of the term ; which of course cut off
the revenue abruptly. In order to secure our credit, it was
necessary to change the law. The Whigs wanted to make
revenue the end and protection only incidental to it. Such
an act was passed for the emergency, but when its time limit
expired there were difficulties again. Fresh action had to be
taken. After Tyler had vetoed a provisional and a regular
tariff bill, Congress emitted a protest charging him with
misusing the veto power ; and debated whether to adjourn
and leave him without a revenue. But it was finally agreed
to omit from the bill the features to which Tyler had ob-
jected, and the latter had his triumph over Clay once more.
Another cause of mortification to us was the state debts,
which were due to the speculation which preceded the panic
of 1S37; they were owing chiefly in Europe, which desired
to make the national government responsible for them.
Mississippi threatened to repudiate her debt in 1841 ; but the

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 829

other states, led by Pennsylvania, refused to follow her
example. It was at this time that Dickens visited America,
and his criticisms stung the more for the basis of truth that
was in them. But slavery, even more than finance, gave
point to his pen ; for Tyler was bringing this trouble toward
its climax. The South was growing constantly more ar-
rogant, and the North was to some degree intimidated.
Adams and the younger but not less valiant Giddings of
Ohio alone defied them in Congress, and issue was joined
for the present on the fugitive slave law. Finally, in 1842,
the Supreme Court handed down a decision making the
slaveholder independent of extradition laws which might
hinder him in recapturing his runaways ; but the free states
often disobeyed this ruling.

The mid-term elections distracted public attention from
other things. Clay's retirement from Congress had not, of
course, prejudiced his claim to the Presidency ; he was nomi-
nated, and it seemed hardly possible he could be defeated.
Webster's position was now peculiar. He was still a mem-
ber of the Cabinet, and he made a speech in Faneuil Hall
commending Tyler, though not in very hearty terms. He
had hoped to rally the Northern Whigs, believing that they
would nominate him instead of Tyler; but the only effect
of his speech was to discourage them ; and the open attitude
of Clay won him the Whig preference over both Tyler and
Webster. But Webster could not yet reach such a pitch of
magnanimity as to support Clay; he preferred to get out
of the country and forget politics for a time. An attempt
was made to get the English mission for him by inducing
Everett to go to China; but it failed; and Webster, without
cause assigned, resigned his place in the Cabinet, Tyler
promptly though politely accepting his resignation. There
was danger of Webster's final extinction at this juncture;
but it happened that Bunker Hill Monument had just been
completed, and he was asked to deliver the oration, as he
had done at the laying of the cornerstone. His speech on

830 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

this occasion was so impressive that it revived his popularity,
and the Whigs opened their arms to him once more, though
it was too late for any question of the Presidency. It was
now that the reconciliation with Clay, perfunctory or not,
was effected; but meanwhile the mid-term elections had
favored the Democrats, and Clay was not so sure of success
as he had been. Moreover, in the Texas annexation question
Tyler had the means of dividing Whig councils.

Texas, after the defeat of the Spanish at San Jacinto,
had posed as an independent republic, and had been ac-
knowledged as such by America and also in Europe. But
Mexico, with the blind stubbornness which marks the Span-
ish character, and resembles that of their own cattle, would
acknowledge nothing, and kept up a dribbling warfare on
the borders. Sam Houston, President of the republic, wished
it to be annexed to this country ; but Tyler had feared hith-
erto to consent, lest he be deserted by the Northern states.
But now he was no longer withheld by this consideration,
and he made overtures, which Houston, after some hesita-
tion on his side, due to doubts whether the country would
support the President, accepted. Mexico meantime had an-
nounced that she would consider annexation an act of war.
Her attitude was more foolish than wrong; and she had
begun paying our claims against her in hard money, though
she stripped her people to do it. Texas, at this time, meant
the whole southwest country which now includes the states
of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and the Lone Star State
itself. With slavery and the cotton crop established there,
the South would gain a decisive preponderance in the Union.

Houston had stipulated that he should be protected by
United States troops against invasion by Mexico. Tyler ac-
cordingly stationed troops on the border; Commodore Jones
had before been dispatched with a squadron to the Pacific,
where he took temporary possession of Monterey. All this
time, the country, Congress, and even Webster, had been
kept in ignorance at what was going forward.

GREAT MEN AND SMALL DEEDS 831

Upshur and Gilmer, members of the Cabinet, were
Tyler's confederates. While the negotiations were at an
interesting stage, they were both killed, together with other
distinguished persons, while witnessing experiments with a
new big gun, which exploded, Tyler himself narrowly es-
caping. Calhoun was selected to fill Upshur's place. He
afterward claimed that Texas annexation was his work;
but Tyler never conceded it. Rumors of the plot now
got abroad, and South divided against North upon Texan
admission. At the national conventions, both Clay and Van
Buren, who was the leading Democratic candidate, declared
against annexation. The Tyler convention, which was not
regarded as regular, made immediate annexation the leading
plank in its platform. But the Van Buren Democrats were
divided on the question, and Cass was advocated by the Vir-
ginia delegates as their candidate. After some balloting,
James K. Polk of Tennessee was unexpectedly nominated,
and was pledged to annexation. Reoccupation of Oregon
was also a leading principle with the Democrats; the whole
Pacific slope had gradually been settled by streams of emi-
grants from the East. Meanwhile the Senate voted against
admitting Texas, except with the concurrence of Mexico.
Each branch of the government was obstructing the other.

The campaign of 1844 seemed bound to terminate in
favor of Clay ; he was certainly one of the best known and
most popular men in the country. Polk was hardly known
at all, and had always taken subordinate positions; but he
was "safe and simple." Jackson advocated him; and finally
Tyler, perceiving the hopelessness of his canvass, retired in
his favor. "The Democracy of the North are the natural
allies of the South," said a Richmond paper. Both Clay
and Polk being slave-holders, it was suggested that the best
man to win with would be the least risky one, who was
Polk. There were outside complications: no-popery riots,
and the appearance of the Liberty Party with Birney as
their nominee. The anti-slavery society agitated, under the

832 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

lead of Garrison and Wendell Phillips, for the dissolution of
the Union. Adams, Seward and Giddings backed Clay as
an anti-annexationist. But Clay was being denounced as an
abolitionist in the South, while in the North he was ar-
raigned as slavery's friend. His instinct to run with the
hare and hunt with the hounds was doing him an ill turn
at this crisis of his destiny. He even allowed an expression
to escape him which was quoted as making him favor Texas
annexation. In the end, it was New York which decided
the election, as it has done more than once since. It went
for Polk by only five thousand majority ; but for the Liberty
Party, it would have given twice as many for Clay. Massa-
chusetts did not vote till after the result was assured; then,
under the stimulus of Webster at Faneuil Hall, it gave its
whole vote to the defeated candidate. It was pleasant to
see a great man thus true to the cause of his rival ; though
it may have been that Webster was not wholly cast down by
Clay's defeat.

The Texas annexation bill now came before Congress
with the current in its favor ; a pretext of British interven-
tion was set up, which would make it an independent and
non-slave-holding state; after an intricate debate, the bill
passed both Houses, under the lead of Benton. Yet the act
might have been still longer delayed had not a revolution in
Mexico overthrown Santa Anna, its President, and put Her-
rera in his place. On the first of March, 1845, Tyler signed
the bill. Texas was a part of the Union : four states might
be formed out of her; in those below the Missouri Compro-
mise line, slavery would be optional; those above it should
be free. The matter of the war with Mexico was left for
Polk to deal with.

The annexation of Texas is the only noteworthy incident
of Tyler's administration; for the Patroon war in New
York, and Dorr's rebellion in Rhode Island, had no special
significance, except as showing the growth, irregular but
inevitable, of the freedom of the individual in the state.

MEXICO 833

But Texas must have become incorporate with us sooner or
later ; the rights of the question were complicated with the
slavery dispute, and the claims of Mexico; but there could
be only one issue, and those who have condemned our con-
duct are hypercritical. Passion and accident combined with
manifest destiny to bring about the result; but men are
human, and in blood and money we paid a fair price for our
acquisition. "Whatever obloquy attaches to the transaction
we may safely ascribe to the ''renegade President."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH

MEXICO

OLK was not a great man ; he might be called a
small one, if the comparison is to be with such
figures as those of Clay, Calhoun and Webster.
He was elected by an unforeseen contingency,
and seemed even less likely than Tyler to ac-
complish anything of importance. He was a
disciple of Jackson, who still lived and talked at his Her-
mitage in Tennessee ; he was a strict party man, and never
entertained a thought of transcending the obligations which
his election had imposed upon him. There was nothing
striking in his character or physical appearance; he was a
sober-looking individual in the neighborhood of fifty years
of age, with plain manners and guileless habits — which in-
cluded the national habit of tobacco chewing — and he was
the husband of a lady who had strict ideas of religion and
behavior. Such people might have been postmaster and
postmistress of a small country town; blameless in their pri-
vate lives, keeping up with current politics, observant of their

834 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

routine civic and social duties. They were commonplace
Americans. Polk was born in North Carolina and brought
up on a Tennessee farm ; he had been a member of Congress,
and was industrious and trustworthy; he had tenacity of
purpose, and could see clearly within his limited range ; he
had plenty of courage, and believed in his country, especial-
ly in the Democratic aspect of it. In short he was a good,
honest business man, whose business was politics; and his
unlooked-for elevation neither frightened him, nor made him
vain. He looked upon it as a business contract, which he
would proceed to carry out, on party lines, without fear or
favor. He chose an able Cabinet, but was the master of it,
and commanded its respect. Such a man is a proof, if any-
thing can be, that any ordinary American of good character
and political training can make a good President of the
United States. And it may happen that, like Polk, the or-
dinary American will be the agent of events no less momen-
tous than those which marked Polk's presidential career.
We have just seen how great men may produce small results ;
we now see a small man produce great results — so far as an
Executive can be said to produce anything.

But Polk was not only methodical: the plans that he
made he carried out. Up to this time all the Presidents,
from Washington down, had planned things which they did
not execute ; but Polk proposed to himself four special things,
and he did them all during his four years of power. They
were, reduction of the tariff, an independent treasury, the
settlement of the Oregon boundary, and the Texan or Cali-
fornian acquisition. That was a large contract for four
years; but he carried it out. The changes he made in the
civil service of course occasioned some dissensions ; he alien-
ated Calhoun and Tyler; but he could afford to do that; for
Tyler was now nobody, and Calhoun was South Carolina
only. Upon the whole, his appointments were judicious.
In June, 1845, Jackson died, nearly eighty years old, pur-
sued almost to the last by swarms of office-seekers who

MEXICO 835

thought his word with the President would be conclusive.
Polk, assuredly, had been his faithful disciple; but times
were changing, and it is probable that Polk did quite as
well without that autocratic power in the background.

The most pressing matter at the beginning of his term
was the Oregon boundary. The United States had been the
first, through Captain Grey, many years before, to discover
the Columbia River ; and with its discovery went the lands
which it drained. But the British Fur Company had been
collecting furs in the northwest region for generations, and
the British government laid claim to everything in its usual
high-handed and insolent manner. Our claim extended
north to latitude 54° 40' ; the English would concede nothing
above 49°. They wished to keep the country wild and un-
inhabited, in order to preserve their game; we wished to
settle in it, and had been doing so for years ; and meanwhile
a * 'joint occupation" had been agreed to, which was incon-
venient, and admittedly temporary. Polk's inaugural ad-
dress asserted our right to all Oregon ; and the country took
up the claim with the cry of "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight !"
Considering that we were on the brink of war with Mexico,
this recalled our belligerent attitude at the time of the war
of 1812, when we had debated whether we ought not to take
on France as well as England. But though it was thought
that England might fight for Oregon, it was not believed
that Mexico would fight for Texas and California; an offer
of money would satisfy her. If Congress had properly
echoed the feeling of the country at this juncture, it is likely
that war with England would have taken place. But Con-
gress, the more it deliberated, grew the more moderate ; and
the messages of Polk were gradually toned down, till the
final Congressional report became a practical basis for diplo-
matic negotiation. During the discussion, the influx of emi-
grants had been greaty increased, whereas the British only
held fortified poLts, and instead of making bona-fide settle-
ments of their own, did all they could to put difficulties in

836 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the way of our emigrants, and did not hesitate to incite the
Indians against them. But Buchanan was our Secretary of
State ; and he finally agreed to accept from Pakenham, the
British minister, the boundary of 49°, with navigation of
the Columbia for the Fur Company. It was less than our
right, but for practical purposes it was quite as much as we
could make use of.

After passing a new tariff bill, which reduced duties and
assessed ad valorem, which was criticised by both Whigs
and Democrats, but did not interrupt the prosperity of the
country, the Mexican business came to the fore.

The war with Mexico was violently denounced at the
time, and has often been condemned since; it gave James
Russell Lowell a memorable opportunity to display his talent
for satire and his command of Yankee dialect, in the Biglow
Papers. The majority of New England people were never
reconciled to it. The objectors make out a plausible case
on paper, but the facts do not sustain them. The Mexicans
were a semi-barbarous people, with whom no civilized asso-
ciation was possible; they conducted negotiations by mas-
sacre and murder, and in war mutilated the bodies of the
slain. They were a cross between Spaniards and Aztec
Indians, combining the least attractive features of both.
Because a man is offensive, however, it does not follow
that he has no rights; but the rights of Mexico in this
affair are very dubious at best. When Texas revolted, she
claimed the Rio Grande River as her Mexican boundary;
and it is the natural geographical one. Mexico thereupon
insisted on the river Nueces as their limit, a small stream
about a hundred and fifty miles further east. It was this
claim of theirs which was their only pretext for war. When
Texas was annexed to us, her boundaries became ours; and
General Taylor, who with a few thousand men had been for
several months on the Nueces, crossed the disputed strip of
ground, and took up his station on the Rio Grande, close
to its mouth, on the American side. This was the extent of

MEXICO 837

the provocation we offered to Mexico ; we were on what we
claimed as our own soil; and our reason for being there
was that the Mexicans were continually making border raids
and murdering persons who were now American citizens.

Mexico, like all Spanish- American states, was continu-
ally subject to revolutions; and at this juncture Herrera,
the President, was deposed in favor of a soldier, Paredes.
Meanwhile Polk had endeavored to open negotiations with
Mexico, with a view to settling the matter without blood-
shed if possible; but Slidell, our envoy, was insulted, and
returned.

Taylor occupied a fort twenty miles from Point Isabel,
opposite the Mexican town of Matamoras on the Rio Grande.
A large Mexican force was on the other side. General Am-
pudia, in command of the Mexicans, ordered him to retire
within twenty-four hours. Taylor of course held his ground;
but a few days later the Mexicans waylaid Colonel Cross
outside the American lines, killed him, pounding out his
brains, and stripped him of his uniform and arms. When
he was missed from the American camp, Captain Thornton
with a few horsemen was sent in search of him ; he also was
ambushed and killed. This first blood of the war was shed
on what could be reasonably claimed as American soil ; and
in a manner characteristically Mexican. "War exists," said
Polk in his message, "and notwithstanding all our efforts to
avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself. ' '

After the killing of Captain Thornton, Taylor, leaving
three hundred men in the little fort, went with the rest of
his force to Point Isabel, where his supplies were stored.
Having secured them, he set out on the return march the
same evening, bringing ten cannon with him. At Palo
Alto, the following noon, he was confronted by six thou-
sand Mexican troops. Taylor had but two thousand; but he
engaged his enemy, and by sunset had defeated him, with a
loss of but nine men killed and less than fifty wounded ; for
the Mexican^ like the Spaniards, are poor marksmen on

838 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the field of battle, and cannot withstand civilized troops.
Advancing the next day, Taylor found the enemy strongly
re-enforced and advantageously posted in a ravine flanked
by chaparral. The fate of this battle hung on the Mexican
artillery, which was well served ; but Captain May, at Tay-
lor's order, charged with his cavalry on the gunners and
sabered them at their guns, but at the cost of half his men.
General La Vega was captured in this charge, and, the in-
fantry following it up, the Mexicans fled in haste. Taylor
reached the fort and found it safe, though Brown had been
killed in one of the assaults upon it. In all these contests,
the dead and wounded who had fallen into Mexican hands
had been uniformly stripped and mutilated.

It was in May, 1846, that these actions took place; before
invading Mexico, General Taylor waited for orders from
AVashington. But the government were taking a compre-
hensive view of the situation, and were moving both north
and south of Taylor's position. Indeed, the expeditions of
John C. Fremont to Oregon and California had begun in
1842, when there was no thought of doing more than inves-
tigating the nature of the great western country, with the
intention, should it prove desirable, of making offers to Mex-
ico for its purchase. This vast region belonged to Mexico by
courtesy only; the Indians had better claim to it than she.
She had never occupied it, in the sense of governing or pro-
tecting it; and the scattered inhabitants who dwelt isolated
in its picturesque expanses could not by the most licensed im-
agination be regarded as a population. They were the feeble
dregs of a decaying race, which at its best was ever hostile
to progress and civilization; they were sunk in sloth and
religious bigotry, and the mixture of ignorance, stupidity
and obstinacy which they called pride was not more pathetic
than absurd. Mexico was so weak and unstable that even
within her own proper domain she was unable to insure any
government a month's lease of power; and that she should
pretend to control the stupendous realm lying west of the

MEXICO 839

Rocky Mountains was preposterous. Nevertheless our gov-
ernment, anxious to keep far within the limits of reasonable
obligations, aimed to make every concession which the most
fastidious scruple could require. The American people were
forcing the government's hand; they were pouring across
the mountains in ever-increasing numbers, and had already
made the land American in all but name. It was necessary
to provide against disorders arising from this source; for a
free and enterprising body of emigrants cannot accommo-
date their ways and thoughts to the lifeless and obstructive
usages of semi-barbarous degenerates, such as were these
mongrel descendants of the red men and Spanish. That
the ' ' Greasers' ' should be overwhelmed was inevitable ; but
it was our wish to afford them all possible compensation.
Another element in the situation was the apparent intention
of England to seize California for herself; to check this pol-
icy, with its sinister consequences, was the part of prudent
and beneficent statesmanship. The impulse and the policy
were national and non-partisan; conquest, in the ordinary
sense, was not contemplated ; at most, only a recognition of
the fact that the horse is his who rides it. Fremont's sur-
veys and his picturesque and stirring adventures were of
great value, and made him personally popular ; his romantic
disposition gave color and character to what he did; and
though, on one or two occasions, he was compelled by un-
foreseen circumstances to act up to the limit of his responsi-
bility, no step that he took was other than honorable and
sagacious.

But Fremont's third expedition was in 1846, when war
between Mexico and the United States was imminent. He
found the Mexican governor, Castro, exercising tyrannical
powers over the American emigrants, and admonished him
to beware. Meanwhile Commodore Sloat, who at this time
was too old for command, had been instructed to take pos-
session of the port of San Francisco and other points during
the continuance of the war. Sloat was timid about carrying

840 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

out these instructions, fearing to involve himself in political
complications ; but upon their being reiterated, and in order
to forestall the English Admiral Seymour, he finally re-
ceived the surrender, without bloodshed, of San Francisco,
Monterey, and the other ports on the coast. He sailed for
home a few weeks later, and was succeeded by Stockton, a
younger man, of more energy and resource, with whom
Fremont could co-operate.

History sometimes imitates, if it do not repeat itself; and
we can find in this Mexican war many similarities to that
with which we engaged with Spain fifty years later. Polk,
like McKinley, was a man of peace, and his Cabinet were of
the like complexion; but war forced itself upon them. The
Mexicans were never successful in any engagement, and
never had a chance of success in the objects for which they
fought ; we continually offered them the opportunity of nego-
tiation with a view to peace, and never struck a blow until
after it was certain that nothing short of a blow would
suffice ; but the Mexicans, with the mulish and unreasoning
obstinacy which took the place in them of patriotism and
courage, insisted upon continuing the contest in the face of
inevitable disaster. Thousands of their soldiers were killed
to flatter the blind vanity or greed of their commanders ; and
thousands of square miles of territory were lost to Mexico,
which might have remained hers had her leaders been truly
patriotic. But the terms of peace we finally allowed her
were ridiculously lenient, and she owes it to our clemency,
and not to herself, that she exists as a distinct people to-day.
The case has been the same with Spain ; though her power
of resistance has proved even less than that of Mexico. But
the Spanish nature is a kind of disease, which has long
afflicted the human race, and is now happily on the verge
of final extinction.

As a means of averting the conflict, the government
entered into negotiations with Santa Anna, who was a ref-
ugee in Cuba, offering him safe conduct to Mexico, where

MEXICO 841

the brief government of Pared es was already tottering, on
the understanding that he use his influence with the nation
for peace. He came accordingly; but once he was in the
saddle, he abjured his promise and became a more aggres-
sive leader of the war. Upon learning this, in October, the
government was fain to issue orders for the raising of vol-
unteer troops ; and the response was enthusiastic : six times
as many offering themselves as were required. So far as
the people were concerned, the war was popular ; though it
is to be observed that the majority of the volunteers, as
might have been expected, were from the Southern states.

General Kearney now set out from Fort Leavenworth,
on the Missouri border, and led a thousand men south-
westward along the Arkansas River to Santa Fe, a march
of nine hundred miles : it was the outpost of Few Mexico,
and submitted without resistance. After taking meas-
ures for the organization of a government here, Kear-
ney continued his march southward, along the western
slopes of the mountains, till he was met by the famous
scout, Kit Carson, who had been with Fremont, and who
informed him that the latter had brought California to sub-
jection. He sent the greater part of his troops back, but
himself kept on with a small force on horseback to the
Pacific, his goal being San Diego, on the coast. The main
body, under Doniphan, marched south to Chihuahua, on
the other side of the Rio Grande, fighting their way against
largely superior numbers, and capturing the town, with
forty thousand inhabitants. Doniphan effected a junction
with Wool, who had brought a force of three thousand undis-
ciplined troops from San Antonio, drilling them by the way,
until at the end of the march they were seasoned veterans.
The union of the two forces was effected at Saltillo, south of
Chihuahua, near which place Taylor had by that time pen-
etrated. Doniphan's men, on the expiration of their term,
marched to New Orleans, and were disbanded, having trav-
ersed in all five thousand miles within twelve months.

U.S.— 36 Vol. III.

842 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Though there was no lack of men anxious to fight Mex-
ico, there was a strong opposition to the war on the part of
many politicians and theorists. The same causes which had
operated against the admission of Texas — fears of the exten-
sion of slavery— were active now; and there is no doubt that
the slave states would willingly have seen their institution
established in the new country. In consequence, the elec-
tions showed a tendency to the return of Whig influence;
and when money was asked for by the government for the
purchase of Mexican claims, a proviso was tacked to the bill
stipulating that all land bought with such money should be
closed to slavery. The proviso, called after Wilmot, who
introduced it, met with angry opposition; but it was popu-
lar in the North, and was heard of later. Slavery or no, the
war must be carried on, and Congress passed the necessary
measures. The government, which desired to get all the
credit for the war that was possible, from political motives,
were embarrassed by the fact that no Democratic generals
were available ; both Taylor and Winfield Scott were Whigs.
Benton might have been used, for he had seen service before
becoming a statesman; but there were technical difficulties
in the way of his appointment, even had he been certainly
competent to discharge his military duties. The President
had to make the best of it; and after all, if the war were
Democratic, it was perhaps to his advantage that it should
be carried on by Whig officers. But the rivalry of parties
was very keen ; and the admission of Iowa and Wisconsin
as free states did not lull the apprehensions of the anti-
slavery section.

The majority of our population probably regarded the
war as an outward incident of the spontaneous expansion of
the nation over the continent. There could be no question
of the spontaneity of that expansion, and there was no
means of checking it. It was in 1846 that the Mormon
emigration, which had started from Missouri under its
prophet, Joseph Smith, in 1842, and had tarried for some

MEXICO 843

years in Illinois, building the city of Nauvoo, came under
the guidance of the new prophet, Brigham Young, to Utah,
where they founded their present abode. Smith had been
arrested in Illinois for breaking the laws of the state, and
had been taken from jail and shot by the mob. This singu-
lar sect, known to the world chiefly as advocates of polyg-
amy, made many converts, and exercised great influence;
and their settlement in the far west undoubtedly helped the
general tendency in that direction. They were fortunate in
their leaders; Smith was as sure he was right as was Mo-
hammed centuries before, and his belief in himself, and the
odd circumstances which he imported into his propaganda,
won him disciples; while Young was a man of great ability,
and a master of discipline and organization. He made the
desert into an Eden, and the great city which he built is
now, since its peculiar shadow of polygamy has been re-
moved, the center of a growing civilization.

Scott and Taylor were both Virginians, and, as has been
said, both Whigs; but here all likeness between them ceased.
Scott was a martinet, a pompous and irritable man, vain as
a peacock, fond of dress and display, arrogant and domineer-
ing; a man who could never win the personal affection of
his officers and men, though they might respect him as an
able and far-seeing general, which he certainly was. Physi-
cally he was a striking figure, towering a head and shoulders
above the rest of the army; and in his plumed hat and
showy uniform, mounted on his charger, he was the type of
Mars come to earth. He was jealous and ambitious, finding
great difficulty in conceding merit to any other soldier in the
army; and his ambition had long aimed at the Presidency.
Taylor, on the contrary, was of medium height, and in all
respects as homely as Scott was handsome. His sobriquet
was "Rough-and-Ready," and it suited him well. He had
no graces of culture ; his speech was rude and ungrammati-
cal; he abhorred conspicuousness in attire or anything else;
his manners were kindly and democratic, he was fond of his

844 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

soldiers and looked personally after their welfare ; and their
devotion to him was confirmed by the fact that he was a
great fighter, and absolutely free from fear; he would loll
in his saddle, and crack jokes, in the midst of a rain of bul-
lets and cannon balls that would have stiffened and sobered
any other man whom they did not frighten. Scott was
brave enough, as had often been proved in the past, though
he had once avoided a duel ; but his ideas of military pro-
priety kept him from needlessly exposing himself; he re-
mained grandly in reserve, and sent his subordinates to the
front. In his conduct of this war, he never made an error,
and his exploits were almost as brilliant as Taylor's; but he
could not gain the love of his soldiers, nor was the impres-
sion he produced at home comparable to his rival's, who
was immediately understood and liked as a true American
type of the good old simple sort: unpretending, sagacious,
humorous, and grit all the way through. It was not long,
as we shall see, before this feeling for Taylor declared itself
in a very practical manner.

Scott was commander-in-chief of the army. But the
outbreak of the war had found Taylor at the front; and
the first news from him indicated that his little force was in
some danger. Scott expected to be sent with a large army
to take the lead in the campaign, his idea being to make a
magnificent tour down the Mississippi, with the admiration
of the world upon him, and then to cross the Rio Grande
and shrivel up the Mexicans. But as soon as Democratic
politicians perceived the significance of this intention, and
realized that Scott was playing for other stakes than mere
victory in war, they remonstrated with the President, and
Polk was obliged to intimate that he contemplated making
other arrangements. To clinch the matter, news was now
received that Taylor was safe, having, beyond all expecta-
tion, beaten his enemy without assistance. Scott was very
angry, and allowed his irritation to appear in letters which
made the people laugh, but not on his side. Taylor was pro-

MEXICO 845

moted to be major-general, and the conduct of the campaign
was intrusted to him. He was gratified, so far as this favor
showed that the people appreciated his efforts ; but he was
not disposed to rely very far upon the smile of the Demo-
cratic government, and felt that were he to fail their support
of him would be withdrawn. In fact, the men and supplies
of which they were lavish on paper were not always forth-
coming in real life, and he had to do the best he could with
what he had.

His proceedings on the Rio Grande have already been
outlined. The general first in command of the Spanish
forces, Ampudia, had quickly been superseded by Arista,
but with no favorable results so far as the Mexican army
was concerned; the Americans were better disciplined and
commanded, and their morale was perfect; while man for
man they were of course immensely superior; their only
deficiency was in numbers.

At odds of nearly three to one the battle of Palo Alto
was fought and won; but Arista, though retreating, seems
to have shared the delusion which we have lately observed
in the Spanish in Cuba, that the Americans would not pur-
sue. But Taylor, anxious for the safety of his fort, kept
steadily on, and overtook the enemy at Reseca de Palma, in
a formidable position. But as before, the charge of our
troops was irresistible, and once in retreat, and their fear of
their own officers forgotten, the flight of the Mexicans was
headlong. Spanish courage is like the spurt of a match ; it
comes and is gone again in a moment, and if that moment
does not decide the contest, all is over for them. The Mexi-
can government, still following the Spanish fashion, court-
martialed Arista, whom it never should have appointed to
such a command.

These brilliant little victories sent Taylor's name all over
the Union, and he was already spoken of for the Presidency.
He, however, thought of nothing but attending to the work
in hand ; and was soon advancing upon Matamoras. Arista

846 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

fled without attempting a battle; and Taylor took possession
and treated the inhabitants well. For a time he paused,
while re-enforcements were on the way, and the political
squabbles in Washington, which always occur on such oc-
casions, and which appear so contemptible in the retrospect,
were being fought out. The line on which Taylor was now
advancing could not reach the City of Mexico; the attack
on that should be made by way of Vera Cruz, as Taylor
himself pointed out ; his duty, meanwhile, would be to push
on to Saltillo via Monterey, cutting the Mexicans' line of
communications. But in carrying out this programme he
was hampered in various ways: the inhabitants had few
supplies, and sold them dear; transport was difficult in the
rough country, and the short term volunteers would be
ready to go home just when they were most wanted. How-
ever, by the end of July he was joined by General Worth,
their united army numbering between six and seven thou-
sand, three thousand of whom were regulars. Taylor
reached a small town twenty miles from Monterey on the
15th of September. Monterey was occupied by ten thou-
sand Mexicans under Ampudia, who had again superseded
Arista, but who was almost equally cowardly and incompe-
tent. The defenses of the town were very strong, and so
was its natural position along a river, with heights be-
hind. Taylor decided to make his main attack on the west;
but he began by a strong feint on the east under Garland,
which was only partially successful, and was accompanied
by severe loss from the enemy's well-posted artillery. But
Worth had had better fortune on the west, carrying with
small loss the heights on that end of the town, and cutting
off the enemy's supplies and re-enforcements on the Saltillo
road. During the next two days, it was to Worth that the
laboring oar was necessarily given, and in a series of mag-
nificent attacks, he won position after position, and finally
swept down the heights, driving the foe before him into the
town. Ampudia, terrified by this advance, shrunk within

MEXICO 847

his inmost defenses. Taylor had not yet established commu-
nication with his victorious subordinate, with a view to com-
bining an attack ; but it was not necessary ; for Worth kept
advancing, fighting his way from street to street, until he
planted his guns in a position whence he could throw shells
into the central square in which the Mexicans were huddled
in stupid consternation. Fortunately for them, night put a
stop to the attack ; and before it could be resumed the next
day, Ampudia sent a flag of trace. The Mexicans, in treat-
ing for surrender, showed precisely the same imbecility
which we see displayed by the beaten Spanish command-
ers in the Cuban war; they would sooner perish with the
city, they declared, than evacuate as paroled prisoners of
war. And Taylor, like our contemporary generals, was
perhaps overindulgent ; he loved not slaughter for its own
sake; and finally agreed to let them march out with small
arms, a battery, and twenty-one rounds of ammunition.
Mexican "honor" was satisfied, and Monterey, with its
guns, munitions and stores, passed into our possession.

There were no eager newspapers with their daily bulle-
tins and their army of war correspondents, in those days ;
but there seems to have been present at this battle a gen-
tleman connected with the "Louisville Courier," who was
moved to write to that newspaper in the following terms,
which we may compare with the style of half a century
later. "In the midst of the conflict," he writes, "a Mexican
woman was busily engaged in carrying bread and water to
the wounded men of both armies. I saw the ministering
angel raise the head of a wounded man, give him water and
food, and then bind up the ghastly head with a handker-
chief she took from her own head. After having exhausted
her supplies, she went back to her house to get more bread
and water for others. As she was returning on her errand
of mercy, to comfort other wounded persons, I heard the
report of a gun, and the poor innocent creature fell dead. I
think it was an accidental shot that killed her. I would not

848 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

be willing to believe otherwise. It made me sick at heart;
and, turning from the scene, I involuntarily raised my eyes
toward heaven, and thought, Great God ! is this war? Pass-
ing the spot the next day, I saw her body still lying there,
with the bread by her side, and the broken gourd, with a
few drops of water in it — emblems of her errand! We
buried her; and while we wore digging her grave, the
cannon-balls flew around us like hail." — It seems as if fifty
years were scarce enough to mark the abyss which stretches
between whipsyllabub of this kind, and the terse, stern tele-
grams which tell us of war nowadays. One can imagine
the sweep of the blue pencil in a modern newspaper office
upon receipt of such a communication.

The victory of Monterey had a somewhat illogical result
— from the strictly military point of view. Taylor was de-
prived of a large part of his command, and left to face the
enemy with a remnant, at a moment when the latter was
re-enforced to the amount of twenty thousand men, and
was commanded by the ablest of the Mexican generals,
Santa Anna. Owing, moreover, to what must be supposed
to have been an accident, a duplicate of the communication
from General Scott, informing Taylor of this depletion, was
allowed to fall into Santa Anna's hands; so that the Mexi-
cans were encouraged to attack a foe whom they already
heavily outnumbered.

What was the explanation of this change of commanders
and of the plan of campaign? As regards the latter point,
the attack on Mexico City by the Vera Cruz route was judi-
cious; the city could not have been reached from Taylor's
position, as he had himself pointed out. For the rest, we
must seek the reason in the intrigues of politics, and in the
professional jealousy and selfishness of Scott. The Demo-
crats in Congress saw in Taylor's successes a menace to
their own continuance in power, and feared that a continu-
ance of them would make the old general Polk's successor.

MEXICO 849

Their only defense against this danger was so to weaken
him in the field that he would either be obliged to retreat,
or, if he engaged, would be defeated. Scott, ordinarily a
man of honor, was seduced by his ambition into aiding this
unsavory plot. But all parties to it were ashamed of their
own work, and also fearful lest the country, getting wind
of it, should condemn them ; so instead of ordering Taylor,
frankly, to put himself under the orders of his ranking su-
perior, they tried to hoodwink him and obscure their true
purposes ; and Scott, rather than brave a personal interview
with Taylor, which the etiquette and courtesy of the service
demanded, put him off with letters and excuses, and com-
mitted the gross breach of decorum of giving orders directly
to one of Taylor's subordinates. Taylor saw through the
whole ignoble transaction, and was bitterly mortified and
indignant. Almost any other commander — certainly, Scott
— would have resigned his place; but Taylor showed a
greatness of soul worthy of Washington himself. He held
his peace, went ahead with his duty, and, with a force which
after his junction with Worth amounted to less than a quar-
ter of that under Santa Anna, prepared to meet the latter
at Buena Vista. Such patriotism and magnanimity some-
times meet reward even in this world.

In a gorge of the mountains a high plateau was protected
front and rear by ravines, while a connecting ridge joined it
to higher ground commanding the roads. On this plain
Taylor drew up his force. Santa Anna sent him a grandilo-
quent summons to surrender on pain of annihilation. Taylor
curtly declined. It was the anniversary of the birthday of
Washington, February 22, 1847.

Santa Anna thought it best to defer the annihilation of the
Americans until the next day ; and meanwhile Taylor rode
back to Saltillo, in his rear, to provide for its safety. Before
he could get back in the morning the battle had begun.
Ampudia was attacking our left with strong support, and
an Indiana regiment of volunteers was giving way in dis-

850 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

order. Taylor brought two regiments and Braxton Bragg's
artillery to their support, turned back the enemy, charged,
and reoccupied most of the ground which had been given
up. Santa Anna, with his superabundance of men, attacked
in front and on either flank ; but his soldiers, as soon as the
bubble of their audacity, blown up by their own boastings,
had been pricked by American resistance, betrayed the cow-
ardice which is deep in the heart of all men of Spanish race,
and could not be led to the attack again. A strong detach-
ment made a detour to capture our baggage; but were
hurled back with heavy loss by the volunteers of Kentucky
and Arkansas, assisted by May's cavalry charge. At the
end of the day, the enemy's attack had failed at all points;
our troops bivouacked where they were, and the next morn-
ing Santa Anna with the remains of his vainglorious army
had disappeared. Our total loss was about seven hundred;
but not more than half of Santa Anna's force reassembled
at San Louis Potosi, whence he had set forth. Those who
were not killed, wounded or prisoners had deserted.

This victory ranks with the great battles of history ; and
none of the combatants comes out of it with quite so much
credit as Taylor himself ; he was in the thick of it all the
time, saw everything, provided against everything, placed
the troops where they would do the most good, sent sup-
ports at the moment they were needed, and inspired the
men to fight like heroes under every trial. A strategy
board, sitting at home, would have decided that Taylor
must be beaten ; but the homely old warrior was willing to
do his best first ; and his best proved more than good enough
for four times his number of Mexicans, led by their best gen-
erals. There were many brilliant exploits during the war,
but none to equal this; and when Taylor fired his last gun
he had — though he was far from being aware of it at the
time— burst open the doors of the White House at Washing-
ton. Zack Taylor, betrayed by his government and wronged
by his fellow commander, was the coming President of the

MEXICO 851

United States. The news of his wonderful victory reached
home just at the right moment, when all were expecting to
hear of his defeat. The country knew that he had been
foully dealt with, and its joy at his success was doubled on
that account. His most malignant enemies at Washington
dared not attempt to check the torrent of enthusiasm ; and
Taylor was and he remained the popular hero from that
hour until his death. The detachment taken from his army,
by which our Secretary of War, Marcy, had hoped to cripple
him, accomplished nothing ; its ostensible purpose had been
to besiege Tampico on the coast ; but Perry had taken it be-
fore Patterson, with the detachment, arrived, and the latter
was able only to garrison it. But meanwhile Scott, in pur-
suit of glory for personal ends, was making a gallant record
along the road to Mexico City.

Distrusting the sincerity of the favor which had put him
forward, but resolved to take advantage of it to the utmost,
and profiting by the revelation of the incompetence of the
enemy which Taylor's campaign had afforded, Scott sailed
from New Orleans and landed at Vera Cruz with twelve
thousand men. His regulars were led by Worth and Twiggs,
his volunteers by Patterson; and a host of smaller fry,
mostly Democratic political generals anxious to forward
their fortunes, made up the list. On the 9th of March, after
the most anxious preparations for a strong resistance from
Santa Anna, who had just been annihilated by Taylor,
though Scott did not know it, the latter got his men ashore
on a smooth sea without the loss of a life, and was ready
to begin the siege of the castle and fortifications.

From Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico is a distance of
about two hundred miles in an air line, and the capital is
raised above the sea about a mile and a half. The road to
it, defended by brave and intelligent troops, could be held
against the world in arms. But these wretched people were
divided among themselves, and were bewildered and terri-
fied by the sight of an invading army. Juan Morales, com-

852 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

manding at Vera Cruz, had forty-five hundred men under
him; but he could get no re- enforcements, and depended
on holding out till that favorite ally of Spanish Americans,
the yellow fever, should fight on his side. His position was
of immense strength ; hut his artillery was poor, and what
was more to the purpose, his soldiers were Mexicans. Scott
had one eye on politics and the other on his army ; but the
result was good ; he determined to risk nothing by assault,
but to proceed by the regular operations of a siege. Commo-
dore Perry deployed his ships so as to assist him, and the bom-
bardment began on the 23d of March, after Scott had offered
to allow the non-combatants to withdraw — an offer which
Morales had characteristically refused. But the next day
this proud commander caused the foreign consuls to make a
request for a truce, while the withdrawal might take place ;
but Scott would now entertain the proposal only in case
Morales himself should proffer it, with a view to surrender;
and meanwhile he opened another battery. This was too
much for Morales, who, too cowardly (or as Spanish ethics
interpret it, too proud) himself to sue for terms, handed the
command over to a subordinate to do it for him. We have
seen precisely the same subterfuge adopted of late at San-
tiago de Cuba. Scott was not particular on that point; the
city a,nd fort were surrendered, the garrison being allowed
to march out with the honors of war.

After waiting for transport, the advance was made in
April, and no resistance was met with until our army
reached Cerro Gordo, in the mountains. Here Santa Anna,
who had recovered his volatile spirits after Taylor's chas-
tisement, was arrayed with ten thousand men. His proc-
lamation to the Mexicans announced that triumph or death
was the alternative he proposed to himself. Three days later
he was in headlong flight, leaving even his wooden leg be-
hind him. But in Spanish philosophy, a word is as good as
a blow, and they take as much credit for saying they will
be heroes, as others do for being so.

MEXICO 853

Santa Anna's position, indeed, was theoretically impreg-
nable, and was defended with elaborate works and ample
artillery. His main force was in the pass of Cerro Gordo, a
steep mountain ascending from the river's bank; the road
passes through the ravine to Jalapa above. The hilltops
had been fortified; Santa Anna's right was protected by a
precipice ; but his extreme left could be turned by the almost
impossible feat of scaling Cerro Gordo itself. Twiggs, how-
ever, succeeded in accomplishing this, thereby gaining the
rear of the enemy's main force, between the latter and
Jalapa. Resting behind the shelter of the peak during that
night, while heavy guns were brought up, Twiggs then
joined in a general assault, which Scott had planned in de-
tail, and which was carried out just as he had designed.
Pillow kept the enemy busy on the right, Riley engaged
the center, and Shields took the left in front ; and Colonel
Harney, of Twiggs's division, clambered up an ascent which
hardly afforded foothold, in the face of a heavy fire, and
carried the intrenchments on the summit with the bayonet.
The enemy gave way everywhere, and when the cavalry
started in pursuit, the rout was complete. Several thou-
sand Mexicans escaped with Santa Anna and Ampudia by
the Jalapa road just before Twiggs was able to get down
to intercept them; but their losses were very heavy; our
own was four hundred and fifty men.

Santa Anna arrived with his shattered army in Mexico
City; but although he knew that further resistance was
vain, his desire to hold the reins of government prompted
him to deceive his countrymen with audacious falsehoods,
and stimulate them to defend the City. The approaches
were accordingly well fortified; and the arrival of a clerk
of the "War Department at this juncture, with ambiguous
messages to Scott, and a sealed packet of unknown con-
tents for the Mexican government, irritated the American
general with the idea that the fruits of his victory were to
be stolen from him The packet turned out to contain the

854 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

offer of a treaty on a money basis; Santa Anna made it
the pretext of delays, and finally told the clerk that he could
not venture to appoint peace commissioners until the Amer-
ican army had carried one of his defenses at Mexico City.
By the time this conclusion was reached, Santa Anna's
preparations were complete, and Brigadier-general Frank-
lin Pierce, a New Hampshire Democrat, just appointed,
arrived to re-enforce Scott with twenty-five hundred men.
It was August, and four months had been frittered away,
to the profit of the enemy.

Proceeding from Pueblo, Scott, marching in four divis-
ions, came in sight of the plain on which the city stands
about the middle of the month. After reconnoitering the
fortifications, Scott decided to attack on the left, which
Santa Anna fancied to be impregnable. Fighting began at
the suburb of Contreras, where Santa Anna himself was
driven back and the works captured, with the road on that
side to the city. At Cherubesco, another outlying hamlet,
with a stone convent by way of citadel, a severe engage-
ment took place; Twiggs was finally assisted by Worth
and Pillow, who had been successful at the village of San
Antonio; the outworks were carried, and the convent sur-
rendered. In this action, General Pierce, who had been
wounded in the foot the day before, had his horse shot
under him: the wounded foot was caught beneath the
horse; the general fainted from pain, and was carried
from the field. The total losses of. the enemy were seven
thousand killed, wounded and prisoners, with three times
as many cannon as the invaders had brought with them.
The total number of Mexicans engaged was twenty-seven
thousand, while Scott had less than half as many; he lost
a thousand killed and wounded.

In compliance with orders from Washington not to con-
quer the enemy too much, Scott forbore to enter the city at
once as he might have done, and offered to receive tenders
of surrender. Santa Anna, however, had resources of ras-

MEXICO 855

cality and duplicity which Scott had not fathomed; and
was ready to ruin his country, or to accept the bribes
which he hoped to secure from our government, as cir-
cumstances might dictate. After the American commis-
sioners had stated our terms of peace — a sum of money, and
the cession of Texas, "New Mexico, and Upper California — •
Santa Anna replied by offering to sell Texas east of the
Nueces, and to cede so much of California as was above
the latitude of San Francisco; requiring of us, in return for
these favors, the payment of all Mexico's expenses in the
war, the restoration of all forts which we had captured, and
a solemn promise never hereafter to attempt to annex a foot
of Mexican territory. Such was our reward for treating
men of Spanish blood with consideration. While the nego-
tiations were in progress, the Mexicans had violated the
terms of the truce, and were repairing and strengthening
their fortifications.

But this tricky and profligate adventurer had overesti-
mated the power of mere politics in America; he had left
the American people out of account. His impudent pro-
posal had been a bid for more money ; but Scott admonished
him that hostilities would be resumed at once. On the 8th
of September "Worth destroyed a powder magazine at the
base of the fortified hill of Chapultepec ; but as no attempt
was made on this occasion to capture Chapultepec itself, the
Mexicans hailed it as a victory, and gave medals to the
heroes who had crouched behind the castle walls while
Worth was carrying off the powder. On the following
days Scott attacked the defenses of the city, which were
strong enough to have defied any assault had they been
defended by men of courage. On the 12th of the month
Chapultepec was bombarded; on the 13th it was carried
by assault; the terrified Mexicans actually leaping down
precipices in their mad rush to escape. In a roaring mass
of confusion the huge throngs of the flying enemy crowded
into the city, of which at the end of the day Scott occupied

856 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

two gates; but during the night Santa Anna stole out on
the other side, and was personally safe. He had played for
a large stake, trusting that others were as base and corrupt
as himself; it was almost his last appearance in history.
For although, years after, he succeeded for a moment in
snatching once more the reins of power, he was almost im-
mediately overthrown ; and, after long exile, he died at last,
a neglected and despised outcast, at the age of eighty-one, in
the city he had betrayed and abandoned. He was a typical
Mexican ; but one of the worst, as well as one of the clever-
est, of his type.

After he had been ousted from the government which he
had unlawfully seized — if law could have any application to
the Mexico of that era — denounced by his own late subjects
as a traitor and robber of the public treasury, the treaty of
peace was concluded by Scott, with terms which showed
every desire to be just and tolerant to the vanquished. In
consideration of the large amount of territory taken, we
agreed to pay Mexico fifteen million dollars, a fifth of this
upon signature of the instrument. The boundary line agreed
upon was as specified in our earlier proposals, and as it now
appears on our maps ; and time to remove, and protection,
were accorded to the inhabitants of the ceded provinces. So
far as Mexico was concerned, the proceedings were over, and
we had shown ourselves more lenient than the customs of
war would have warranted ; though of course no American
desired the annexation of Mexico itself, with its undesirable
population. But Scott had still other battles to fight with
his own Democratic subordinates; which resulted in his
ordering Worth and other officers under arrest, pending
charges brought against them; but the "War Department
directed these charges to be preferred at home, and they
resulted in a virtual acquittal. Before this time there had
been an immense quantity of Whig and Democratic talk in
Congress anent the war, little of which was sincere ; but the
critics of the war were upon the whole less sincere than were

MEXICO 857

its defenders. The moral issues which they sought to raise
were absurd ; the real point of dispute, more or less cunningly-
disguised, was as to the admission into the conquered district
of slavery. Should the Missouri Compromise line be run
to the Pacific, or should the entire new region be open to
slaves? This was a pregnant question ; it was compromised
for a time by Clay, as we shall see; but meanwhile the Wil-
mot Proviso served to formulate the issue before the coun-
try. The slavery dispute was rushing fiercely to its issue,
and men were divided between the passions which it excited,
and their wish to avoid a fatal rupture. The greatest states-
men of the country were to lavish their best thoughts and
energies upon the problem, and after all the knot was to be
severed by the sword.

At present, it became evident that the Democrats were
losing. The Whigs had been helped by the fact that after
the Mexicans had been proved unable to effectually resist
us, the war lost most of its interest for the people; the re-
sult seemed known beforehand, and the details were monot-
onous if not tedious. The Mexicans were called patriotic
because they so prolonged the peace arrangements, when in
truth the delay was due partly to the selfish designs of their
officials, and partly to the latter's fear to take the responsi-
bility of negotiating at all. "When the peace was established,
the Whigs charged that the Democrats had waged the whole
war in the interests of slavery ; and in the inflamed state of
men's minds, even so extravagant an accusation as this was
allowed to pass. But the strongest argument for the return
of the Whigs to power was the prospect of electing Zachary
Taylor to the Presidency ; he could unite both parties as no
one else could, since his own party predilections wero any-
thing but bigoted, and he was the hero of the war, whether
the war were right or wrong. "I beat 'em at Buena Vista"
was all the politics he needed for his election. Yet his vic-
tories were not his only qualifications for the Presidency by
any means ; and the American people had divined that the

858 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

man who had won such battles over not only the enemy, but
himself, was able to make the office of Executive respected.
There was a dwindling Whiggish minority, however, who
clung to their ancient idol Henry Clay, who had become a
farmer since his retirement, and had experienced religion.
Horace Greeley, through his "Tribune," represented these
patterns of constancy; and the famous old leader, now
seventy years old, was induced to make a speech at Lex-
ington, Kentucky, denouncing the war, abusing the Demo-
crats, and advocating "the virtues of moderation and mag-
nanimity." The veteran's eloquence was almost as bright
as ever, but he could no longer move the people by exhor-
tations and attacks of this kind. It was observable that
though the Whigs had constantly abused the war while it
lasted, they had not ventured to stop supplies. They wanted
both the moral advantage of having opposed it, and the con-
crete benefits it would secure. Webster himself would com-
mit himself to nothing further than general disapproval. In
the House, a new member, Abraham Lincoln, made an able
speech analyzing the Democratic professions ; but it had no
serious effect. The remonstrances of the aged but still fiery
John Quincy Adams had more weight; but just before the
news of peace came, Adams, in his place in the House, was
stricken by death; he lingered from the 21st to the 23d of
February, but his last conscious words were uttered within
a few minutes of the attack: "This is the last of earth," he
said; "I am content." He might well be content; he had
lived eighty years, had served his country all his life, and
had never done an ignoble deed. From his funeral the House
returned to give its approval to the treaty of peace ; and now
the question must be decided, How was this new world to be
divided, as between the slaveholders and the free? Peace
with Mexico was the beginning of civil war in the United
States.

Pending that decision, Oregon was admitted as a terri-
tory, under the Wilmot Proviso, though, as Polk remarked,

MEXICO 859

the Missouri Compromise was a sufficient protection in itself.
Clayton of Delaware proposed that new territory should be
slave or free according to the decisions of the Supreme Court ;
but this " Clayton Compromise" was not approved, though-
Jefferson Davis, among others, advocated it. It was thought
that the platforms of the national conventions would shed
light upon the problem; but the "Whig convention, after
nominating Taylor and Fillmore in preference to either Clay
or Webster, adjourned without a mention of the Wilmot Pro-
viso, or any other platform plank ; and the Democrats, who
chose Cass and Butler for their standard-bearers (Polk hav-
ing declined to run), were almost equally reticent. The des-
perate eagerness of the Whigs for power, at any cost, was
demonstrated in their choice of a slave-holding candidate,
and their silence as to the Proviso. Indeed, an extreme
wing, comprising Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, Charles
Sumner and Samuel Hoar, combined with the correspond-
ing subdivision of the Democrats known as Barnburners,
and set up a Free-soil Party; the old Liberty Party joining
them. They met in convention at Utica, and nominated
Martin Van Buren, on a platform which, while abstaining
from interfering with established slave states, forbade the
creation of any more. Charles Francis Adams, son of John
Quincy, was nominated for the Vice-Presidency.

Clay and Webster had been much mortified by the prefer-
ence given to Taylor ; for what is the use of being a leading
statesman all one's life, if a rude soldier who knows nothing
of statesmanship is to be chosen over one's head at last?
Webster had been offered the Vice-Presidency, but had de-
clined it from pride ; yet had he accepted it he would have
been President after a year. Clay accepted his defeat as
final; he would not help Taylor's canvass, but refrained
from opposing it, as Webster— not explicitly, but by implica-
tion—certainly did. For the rest, little could be gathered as
to Webster's real attitude till toward the latter part of the
summer, when he made that powerful declaration : " I shall

860 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

oppose all slavery extension and all increase of slave rep-
resentation," he said, speaking on the Oregon bill, "in all
places, at all times, under all circumstances, even against
all inducemnets, against all supposed limitation of great in-
terests, against all combinations, against all compromise."
This seems sweeping enough; yet Webster remains open to
the imputation of having regarded the Union and the Con-
stitution as superior to the simple law of right and wrong.

Calhoun and his followers took the bolder and franker
course of declaring that any citizen of the United States had
the right to reside in any state of the Union he pleased, and
to take his slaves, if he had any, with him; and Calhoun
added that the time was come to arm against the North.
Mexico had been conquered chiefly by Southern soldiers,
and Southerners should have the privilege of occupying the
territory upon their own terms. The Missouri Compromise
no longer satisfied these men ; they demanded not only to be
"let alone" where they were, but to have liberty to carry
their institutions elsewhere. After taking such a stand, the
alternative of mere secession might seem almost like conced-
ing a favor. They did not succeed in enforcing their opinions
upon Congress, for the Southern Whigs would not go so far;
but they managed to block decisive legislation as regarded
California, and postpone the issue to the next session at least.

Polk's administration accomplished solid and valuable
results ; in this respect it is entitled to far more credit than
were several which had preceded it — not to speak of its
immediate followers. But Polk personally had not been a
success, in the popular sense ; he was too reticent ; he never
spoke with the people as man to man ; he took his course,
and vindicated it in his long and dry messages; but he
sought no means of getting into closer touch with the coun-
try; he was totally devoid of what is called magnetism.
His enemies abused him without stint ; but what he accom-
plished is a sufficient answer to most of their charges and
denunciations. He was faithful in his work and devoted to

MEXICO 86 1

his country ; in his silent way, he suffered keenly from the
wanton abuse which was directed against him; his four
years in the White House made him prematurely old; and
he died in June, 1849, a few months after his successor had
been inaugurated. He received no public funeral; no na-
tional monument commemorates him; but Texas and Cali-
fornia, and the vast region between, are his contribution
to our greatness ; and Oregon, with the northern boundary
of the Republic. Again, his tariff bill, with its tendency to
free trade, was of immense benefit to our commerce, and
proved anything but a check to our manufactures — thus
falsifying the predictions of its eminent opponents. The
financial situation had also greatly improved. The only
really serious charge brought against him — that he provoked
the Mexican War for party ends, and for the sake of illicit
conquest —will not stand the test of dispassionate scrutiny.
It was a war forced upon us, partly by the natural westward
movement of our population, partly by the outrages perpe-
trated by Mexico, whose cruelty and anarchy made all politi-
cal association with her impossible. It was a thoroughly
justifiable war, and was carried on with as much humanity
as brilliance.

To turn aside for a moment from these political matters,
let us remember that it was during Polk's administration
that a discovery was made which, more than any other
single fact in medical annals, has proved of lasting benefit
to mankind. Pain is the great evil that afflicts mortal
man ; and the inseparable connection of pain with surgical
operations had been, since earliest history, one of the darkest
shadows of human life. It had moreover rendered prac-
tically impossible all those extraordinary surgical triumphs
which the latter half of this century has won ; for they are de-
pendent for success not only on the entire immobility of the
patient during the operation, but upon his ability to survive
the shock of the often long and exquisite agony inflicted by
the knife. The discovery of anaesthesia by Dr. W. T. G.

862 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Morton, in 1846, has saved thousands of lives, and has
spared millions of men and women incalculable suffering.
The world owes this young New England physician a debt
which can never be repaid, save by acknowledging its in-
debtedness.

"W. T. G. Morton was born in Massachusetts in 1820; he
had a good academy education, but was largely dependent
upon his own ability, courage and resolution for a livelihood.
He studied medicine first with a private physician in Boston,
afterward entering the Harvard Medical School, and follow-
ing a course of lectures there ; and it was while still a stu-
dent, and engaged in the practice of dentistry, that he became
impressed with the ansesthetic properties of sulphuric ether.
On the 16th of October, 1846, in the operating room of the
Massachusetts General Hospital, Morton demonstrated to an
assembly of distinguished physicians the value of his dis-
covery. In so doing he not only went against the opinions
and warning of some of the best medical minds of the age,
but he risked an indictment for manslaughter, should his
experiment terminate unfavorably. It is not easy to over-
estimate the heroism which, in the face of such discourage-
ment, went steadily forward to establish what he knew was
a truth, and what has proved so vast a blessing to the
world.

A patient was to be treated for tumor. Morton had his
ether in a little glass globe; he put the rubber mouthpiece
of the globe between the patient's lips, and caused him to
inhale the contents. The man speedily became insensible;
the removal of the tumor was successfully accomplished by
Dr. John C. Warren, the patient appearing all the while as
if in profound slumber, except some slight movements
toward the end of the operation; and upon recovering
consciousness he declared that he had felt no pain. Such
were the simple circumstances which ushered in this stu-
pendous revolution.

We can well imagine that though the patient felt noth-

MEXICO 863

ing, the feelings of the young experimenter during that crit-
ical half hour must have been poignant enough; and any-
one might envy the glad thrill of generous emotion with
which he welcomed the recognition of his success. He was
destined, like so many other benefactors of their species, to
subsequent misrepresentation, and to suffer, in ways which
ether could not avert, from the efforts of conscienceless pre-
tenders to rob him of the credit of his intelligence and brav-
ery. But time has done Dr. Morton justice; and thirty
years after his untimely death, the Semi-Centennial Anni-
versary of anaesthesia was celebrated by a gathering of the
leaders of the profession in America, and Morton's sole right
to the honor of the discovery and its application was finally
vindicated and celebrated. Fulton and Morse had already
won our gratitude for their immense contributions to the
material wealth and progress of the race; but the service
rendered by Morton is more tender and intimate than theirs,
and a warmer sentiment than gratitude must always mingla
with our memories of him.

CHAPTER THIRTIETH

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS

S the time of which we write draws nearer to
the present, the difficulty of comprehending the
meaning of events increases; we see wrongs,
and marvel why they were permitted, and how
they shall be made right ; — for we must believe
in the good purpose of an almighty God, or
else history becomes a meaningless juggle of
accidents, which it would be worth no man's while to re-
count or disentangle. But the wrong of slavery has now
passed away from us, and the steps which led to its passing
are known, if not always in their innermost secrets, yet
broadly enough to enable us to draw inferences and deduc-
tions. We can begin, at least, to understand how events
were overruled for our ultimate benefit; though doubtless
the great account is not yet fully settled; there are other
kinds of slavery than that of the negro, and this country is
not yet free. During the struggle between North and South
before the outbreak of actual war, many of the greatest
minds that America has produced were bent upon the prob-
lem of the slave ; and some of them lost their bearings en-
tirely; some chose the wrong deliberately in preference to
the good; some doubted and hesitated, wishing to do right,
but fearing to admit to themselves what the right truly was,
until the golden moment, for them, was forever gone; and
some few saw the right and clave to it through good and
evil report, and will not fail of their meed of honor, when
(864)

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 865

all is done, and men are weighed as to their motives and
their acts.

That human slavery was an evil, there are none now to
deny ; not because those who were moved to support it by
the sword were conquered in the battle : for conquest does
not prove right : but because, now that the burden has fallen
from us, we discover that it was never necessary to our best
development, and that though, for a time, it seemed as if
much of our material prosperity was to be ascribed to it, we
have learned that without it we should have been a better
and happier people, and that wealth also would not have
been denied us, though it came through other channels.
Slave labor was never a necessity to the prosperity of this
Union; and that it was a detriment on other grounds is
clear. But it had come upon us without our consent, and,
once established, there were many practical obstacles to
getting rid of it. At first all parties had loyally wished
to accomplish emancipation ; but gradually, as slavery bred
a race of slave-holders, different in training and ideas from
the rest of their countrymen, these came to approve the in-
stitution for itself; they defended it, and the moral outcry
against it of the rest of civilization only confirmed them in
their defiant attitude. They even declared it to be a holy
institution ; it became almost a point of religion with them,
as well as of honor, to uphold it. Southern honor was a
local phenomenon; it was, indeed, derived from medieval
sources, and was an anachronism in the Nineteenth Century ;
but it existed in the South because there men had become
used to holding opinions as they held a wife, and allowing
no question thereupon. A Southerner's opinion, his word,
his institution, all were sacred; he would not argue about
them, or if he did it was with no intention of admitting
arguments on the other side. Calhoun argued in behalf of
slavery; but he did not the less adhere to his conclusions
after they had been shown, as they often were, to be un-
tenable. An argument — a syllogism — is something to fight
U.S.— 37 ' Vol. III.

866 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

with, even though it be unsound; and in any argument it
will generally happen that nine-tenths of the words spoken
are vain words, having no true relevance to the matter in
hand, and serving only to make the outward show of resist-
ance. Southerners, then, had deliberately shut the avenues
of the mind through which they might be approached on the
subject of the abstract right or wrong of slavery; and in
Congress, as we have seen, they so far imposed their will
that for many years the subject was taboo, and to refer to
it was to risk a quarrel.

To this, the North, or a major part of it, submitted; they
were resigned to letting slavery continue to exist where it
had always been; and with this concession, the only open-
ing for quarrel was when a slave escaped into a free state,
and, according to the law of the land relating to property,
must be given back to the owner upon demand. Such a law
was odious to the North, not because negroes were property,
but because they were human beings. But, save in sporadic
instances, the odious law was obeyed, because it was the
law; and the way to protest against it was not to break
it, but to obtain its repeal. The Abolitionists would break
the law, and sever the Union; but that was to cure one
wrong by another; and their course was wrong, because
other means had not been exhausted. When the time came
that a majority of the people wished slavery to cease, it
would cease, though the will of the majority were enforced
by the sword; but until it was the will of the majority, noth-
ing but agitation within lawful and constitutional limits was
justifiable. Let the Abolitionists hold up the torch of truth
before the people, and bid them bow to it ; but let them not
use it to set fire to the foundations of the state.

The Southerners, however, would not let the matter rest
here, where it might have rested indefinitely. And we may
note that all evil is like a fire, which must be extinguished,
or it will extend its bounds; it cannot be shut up in a given
compass, and there be content. The evil of slavery could

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 867

not rest within its historic limits, but must needs come forth
and spread over the whole continent. The general pretext
given was that unless the equilibrium of free and slave
states was preserved, the free would obtain preponderance,
and would use it to destroy the institution on its own ground.
Slavery must spread, on pain of being altogether extirpated.
This was the Southern plea, and it was not without plausi-
bility. Yet it is probable that the North would never have
interfered with the slave states; they had their own affairs
to attend to, and were willing to let the South attend to hers
— if only she would. It would presently have become obvi-
ous, too, that the slave states, occupying a limited area,
would gradually have declined, and expired of internal dis-
ease, if not by the revolt of their human cattle, as in San
Domingo. If they would have agreed to keep themselves
to themselves, the North need have done nothing more than
leave them thus isolated, and the end would have been a ques-
tion of time only. But to this the South would not agree ; and
indeed it would have been a practical impossibility, under the
geographical and political conditions of the Republic.

The South, then, must extend the area of slavery: and
how should it be done? Clay had said, Let it be done by
drawing an east and west line, and assigning all south
thereof to slavery, the northern division to freedom. This
compromise served until the movement of emigration to the
far west, and the Mexican war, raised the question whether
the east and west line should be continued across the Con-
tinent to the Pacific. The Southerners assumed that it
should, as a matter of right; but the North demurred.
But the South had here the stronger logical position. What
right had the North to limit the extension of that east and
west line? If they allowed it to rule to the Mississippi, why
ought it not to rule to the Pacific? In this was the mischief
of the Missouri Compromise, as of any compromise between
right and wrong, apparent. The North had forfeited the
privilege of logical consistency.

868 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Of course, the true answer was, that consistency itself is
sometimes the worst of evils. But many of the North did
not declare this; and they were at this disadvantage with
the South, that whereas the latter had, in slavery, a positive
point to urge and to fight for, the North had only an abstract
and practically a negative one — that slavery ought not to
extend. It was too late for them to assert that a country
originally free ought never to become the seat of slavehold-
ing; they should have made that objection at the time the
Compromise was first urged. And the majority of them
feared to be inconsistent ; and they also feared the Constitu-
tion ; and they also feared to shoulder the responsibility of
severing the Union, which, in case they took the opposite
course, the South threatened. For a threat it was, though
disguised as an inevitable necessity. In short, the North
hesitated and was weak.

The other contention of the South — that any slaveholder
had the right to take his slaves with him and settle in any
Northern state — though it was not carried out, was not relin-
quished, but was held in terrorem. It was useful as indicat-
ing how moderate, after all, was the Southern attitude — how
much more troublesome they might be if they chose ; and it
lent color to their assertion that it was the North who was
the aggressor. Upon the whole, therefore, it seemed, at the
end of the Mexican war, as if the whole southwest was dedi-
cated to slavery, and no help for it. Rather than break the
Union, let it go at that !

But in the midst of these very human squabbles, through
which no way appeared to peace with honor, there occurred
one of those events which are termed, by way of distinction,
Providential ; because the hand of God is manifest in them,
instead of being hidden, as usual. Far on the west of the
continent, its fertile hills and valleys spreading broad be-
tween the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, and extending
far to the north and the south of the Missouri Compromise
line, lay the mighty and as yet scarce known domain of

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 869

California. Under ordinary circumstances it would have
taken a generation at least to settle this territory; and in
the ordinary course it would have been divided, at best,
between slavery and freedom. But at this moment a New
Jersey man who was digging the channel of a mill race for
a sawmill, happened to notice, in the gravel washed down
by the stream, some grains of a yellow substance, heavy
and metallic; which he picked up, tested, and found to be
pure gold. Those grains had lurked there since the begin-
ning of things, waiting the time to appear, and change the
course of human history. One might moralize over the fact
that mortal greed should be the means of preventing a great
social catastrophe; but such speculations are vain, because
the arc we can survey is so small compared with the whole
sweep of the Divine round. Men are governed by their pas-
sions ; a low age by low stimuli, a higher, by lofty ones. In
1849 the passion for gold, and what gold means, was suffi-
cient to cause a shifting of the population, hitherto without
parallel for its rapidity and extent. A half-built mill be-
came a great city; a town of two thousand inhabitants
became a city of twenty thousand; and all within a year.
Loose atoms of humanity from every country of the earth
gathered in California during little more than the lapse of a
summer vacation, and those vast solitudes suddenly became
peopled with the tumultuous and lawless crowd of gold-
seekers. Lawless they were, at first, for there was none to
enforce law ; and the visions, and the reality, of sudden and
great wealth dazzled out of view all other considerations.
Here was a splendid wilderness, a nearly perfect climate, no
conventions, no traditions, no restraints, no women at the
outset, and when women came, they were generally but
another lure to disorder. Many of these gold-seekers were
men of no education, of no moral perceptions, wholly un-
used to the idea of riches ; and when such men became rich
by the stroke of a pick, they knew not what to do with
wealth, and in their ignorance they used it only to minister

870 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to their physical lusts. At the end of each week, at the end
of each day, they were ready to spend what they had found
in drunkenness and gambling; if they lost what they had
gained, they had but to dig up enough to replace it ; if they
won, there must be more debauch. The only safeguard, for
a while, against a reign of universal confusion and mutual
destruction, was the seemingly inexhaustible amount of the
treasure ; it was believed that the whole extent of California
was gold thinly veiled by vegetation. Robbery was rare,
and, when discovered, was terribly punished; fights were
common, but they were almost always the outcome of drink,
and if they did not result fatally, were forgotten the next
day. The common causes of enmity between man and man
were here absent ; there was enough for all so far as gold
was concerned; and there were no materials for social or
political feuds. Yet such a good-humored and dissolute
anarchy could not indefinitely continue; because, for one
thing, the continuous rush of emigration would finally oc-
casion personal collisions ; and because a life without law is
sooner or later self-destructive. Even savages have their
laws, or their superstitions, the organization of which takes
law's place. But an aggregation of savages who have be-
come so by degradation can only issue in mutual anni-
hilation.

This, however, was not to be the destiny of California;
and the reason was that the majority of the gold-seekers
were Americans, or men of Anglo-Saxon lineage and in-
stincts. That race cannot exist long without law; the sen-
timents of justice, equity and order are in their marrow, and
must manifest themselves. They do not need kings or proph-
ets to rouse them from anarchy; they rally and marshal
themselves by a spontaneous impulse, and therefore they are
the inevitable rulers of the earth. Many of the new Cali-
fornians were men of some education; and the majority
were marked by that strength of character and depth of vi-
tality which is essential to the successful pioneer or advent-

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 871

urer. These soon found one another out, and were united
to one another by common thoughts and views. They
became dominant over the chaotic mass; order cannot
help dominating chaos, for it knows what it wants, and it
always wants the same thing; whereas chaos knows and
aims at nothing, In a surprisingly brief time therefore the
Anglo-Saxon minority established laws and regulations in
the midst of this roaring, seething, aimless multitude : such
things might be done, such might not ; this penalty waited
upon this crime, that upon that. The Vigilance Committee
took the place of Congress and President; the laws were
liberal enough, but they were strict within their bounds.
Men were hanged, flogged or banished, as the case might
be ; there was no appeal, and the community perceived that
the laws observed a rough impartiality, securing to each
man his own, and permitting no infringements. And while
the diggers thus protected themselves, the opportunity of
profit which trade afforded caused an immense influx of deal-
ers of all sorts; and trade is necessarily orderly. Houses
took the place of tents; streets replaced wandering foot
paths; fixed property asserted itself on all sides, and was
respected. There arose a pure democracy from the whirl-
pool of mobocracy; and it was rigid, in spite of its breadth,
because mobocracy was its twin sister and might else be
mistaken for it. It was an American community, and of
course it was free; there could be no foothold for human
slavery among such men. There were among them many
who had been Southern slaveholders; but they never ven-
tured to air their opinions there, far less to attempt to intro-
duce their institutions. There would have been short shrift
for them, had they done so, Each man must work for him-
self, or go, or starve. The Missouri Compromise line would
serve only to hang its advocate with, in California.

This vital result could, so far as we can judge, have been
attained in no other way, and at no other time. Had gold
been discovered before the Mexican war, and the cession of

872 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

territory that involved, it is hardly possible that Americans
would have gained control ; England and other nations would
have seized what they could ; conflicting claims would have
stirred up wars, California would have become a shambles,
and would have been lost to freedom even had it not become
wedded to slavery. Had gold been discovered later than it
was, the Missouri line would probably have been drawn,
with all that it implied. But as it was, gold saved Cali*
fornia to America and to freedom in 1849; and incidentally
it bred a race of men fitted by nature and temper to occupy
that outpost of our nation, and make it rich and respected ;
for the solid residue of merit which stands after the flotsam
and jetsam of weakness and disorder have been dispersed,
comprises the very pith of mankind, which nothing can
uproot. The Forty-Mners and their descendants came in
good season to remind America what she contained of simple
strength ; and to renew on the Pacific the valiant traditions
which had won the Atlantic coast from Europe.

The roads by which California could be reached were
three ; one across the breadth of the Continent, with peril of
wild beasts, wild men, and wild and desolate nature ; another
by sea to Panama and across and up the coast to San Fran-
cisco; the third, round Cape Horn. All these routes were
thronged, and all of them had their varying adventures and
vicissitudes ; the overland was perhaps the most picturesque
and striking, and the strain and suffering were the longest
drawn-out. But that story cannot be even outlined here;
and it has been painted again and again in unforgettable
colors by masters. Indeed, nothing in our history is stran-
ger, more stirring, or better known than this so-called episode
of the Argonauts. Bret Harte has told it all, perhaps with
too bizarre a mingling of cynicism and optimism ; but after
making allowances his pictures will stand.

General Taylor, President of the United States, had the
eye of a soldier for the significance of the California emigra-
tion, and the sagacity of a statesman in dealing with it. He

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 873

took immediate measures to assist in the formation of a stable
government, and recommended that California be admitted
as a state at the earliest moment. Though a Virginian and
a slaveholder, he had no wish to see California ceded to
slavery, and he knew that only violence could effect such a
result. Let her come in on her own terms, said he ; and he
would have New Mexico also determine to which side she
would adhere. This liberality offended the South and sur-
prised them ; they had not thought that a President of their
own section, though a Whig, would thus oppose their policy ;
but they feared to denounce him, for his position, and the
firmness which began to appear through his friendly straight-
forwardness, made him formidable. He was the President
of the whole nation, not of any part of it only ; and he did
not fear the South, as many eminent Northerners did.
When a delegation of Southern Whigs called on him to ask
him to pledge himself to sign no bill with the Wilmot Proviso
in it, he replied that any constitutional bill should have his
signature. "If you send troops to coerce Texas, Southern
officers will not obey your orders," they rejoined. This
made the soldier indignant. "Then I will command the
army in person," thundered he; "and if any man is taken
in treason against the Union, I will hang him as I did the
deserters and spies at Monterey. ' ' Plainly, this law-abiding,
impartial, fearless President was not to be led by the nose
by any one.

California had voted itself an anti-slave constitution ; and
with that constitution she should come in, if Taylor had his
way. Nothing did he say about the Wilmot Proviso in
his recommendation ; there was no need for it, and he would
not tread on his Southern fellow countrymen's susceptibilities
wantonly. But the mass of the Southerners were against
California's admission as a free state; Quitman, a New
Yorker who had become a slaveholder, was especially viru-
lent against it ; he wanted both New Mexico and California
for slavery; and hinted at designs against Cuba and the

874 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

country further south — that shadowy southern empire which
so many Southerners dreamed of at this time, after the seces-
sion which they contemplated should have been accomplished.
The two causes began to count up their several champions in
Congress, and to listen to what counsels they might give.

There was not much debating power of a high order in
the House ; but in the Senate there was more than enough.
Besides the great discordant triumvirate of Webster, Clay
and Calhoun, now making their last appearances in the
arena, there were Seward, who was looming larger and
clearer every day, Salmon P. Chase, Sam Houston of Texas,
Benton, and Bell. Clay had meant to retire from Congress;
he was overpersuaded to return; and though he came, as he
thought, merely to look on, he remained to offer one more
great compromise. He had his own ideas as to how the
impending collision might be averted ; it was not the Presi-
dent's idea, for Clay would take suggestions from no one ;
and his divergence from Taylor divided the Whigs and pre-
pared their defeat. He brought in his proposal a week or so
after the President's suggestions, and showed it previously
to Webster, whose attitude was still in doubt. The plan, on
the whole, greatly favored the South ; but it contained meas-
ures intended to sweeten it to the Northern palate. Cali-
fornia was to be admitted; but only on condition that she
carried New Mexico and Utah on her back, and took her
chances with them, which were not states but territories.
The buying and selling of slaves in the District of Columbia
was to be discontinued ; but the fugitive slave law was to be
enforced strictly. Texas, which had made an untenable
claim to a large part of the soil of New Mexico, was to be
bought off on terms favorable to her. The Wilmot Proviso
was ignored, and the option of slavery or freedom was to be
given to states applying for admission. It was manifestly
unjust that California, which stood alone, should be saddled
with territories concerning whose status as regarded slavery
nothing definite was promised. The right of Congress to de-

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 875

cide such matters was abnegated. Both South and North
had objections against the bill; and Jefferson Davis de-
manded that the slaveholders be permitted to bring their
slaves into New Mexico without reference to legislation in
that territory. The extension of the Compromise line was
not demanded in Clay's bill; and this opened the whole
question.

Three great speeches were made on the question, besides
that great one of Clay's in which he introduced his measure.
Calhoun's was written out, and was delivered for him by
Mason, Calhoun listening to its delivery. He wished Cali-
fornia to return to her territorial condition; he supported
neither Taylor nor Clay, but hinted at secession as the prob-
able solution of the problem. Unless South and North were
given equal rights in the new territory, agitation of the slav-
ery question stopped, and the Constitution amended to favor
the South, then the South must leave the Union. The speech
was able, but it was not creative, and it determined nothing.
It was followed on the 7th of March by the famous speech
of Webster, in which he took the course that brought upon
him the hostility of the North, while failing to secure for
him the full measure of Southern confidence. The true sig-
nificance of Webster's attitude has been a bone of contention
ever since; but it is certain that it destroyed his influence
during the short remainder of his life. He never retracted
the views he then expressed ; and whether in his heart he
believed that he had been mistaken cannot be known. He
tried to achieve the impossible, and failed.

He professed to speak for the cause of the Union and of
the Constitution; and as an American without party, and
without reference to sections. He gave Clay's bill his sup-
port; he granted all the demands of the South, while de-
nouncing as visionary Calhoun's idea of a peaceable seces-
sion. He would give no countenance to free-soil doctrines,
and scoffed at the Wilmot Proviso. He left slavery where
it was, though with indications that he had no objection to its

876 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

extension. For him, the Union and the Constitution were
paramount; no law of morality or of right and wrong could
take precedence of them. In speaking, his eloquence was
as great as ever; but the substance of what he said was pro-
foundly disappointing. Upon a review of all the circum-
stances and conditions it does not appear likely that "Webster
intended any wrong ; rather did he aim at a mark which
seemed to be above mortal limitations, only because in truth
it did not exist at all. Shooting his arrow in the air, he
wounded his own friend. He wished to be an American;
he would stand on equal ground between South and North,
recognizing only his fellow-countrymen. He thought that
by owning no leaning to partisan rancors on either side,
he was asserting impartiality and independence. But what
he really did was to confound morality with geography.
A man's country is not its topographical particulars, but its
highest spirit : its approximation to the ideal good and true.
If the South were wrong, it made no difference that they
were Southerners; if the North were right, it was no nar-
row partiality that should declare them so to be. If wrong
seemed to be buttressed by the Constitution, that only proved
that the Constitution was not infallible ; if to champion the
right imperiled the Union, that could only imply that the
terms of our Union should be purified. Webster sought to
be national ; but he succeeded only in declaring a cynicism
profounder even than Calhoun's. The powers of his great
brain had been too strong for his moral integrity; for the
sake of an outward good, he had refined away the barriers
which divide between good and evil in the soul.

This error was not committed by the young Seward, who
followed him in the debate, and introduced that considera-
tion for "the higher law" which has made the phrase famous.
Beginning with symptoms of embarrassment, he warmed to
his theme and became eloquent, and announced doctrines
which one would wish to have heard in Webster's organ
tones. They were novel doctrines in that chamber; sublime

JEFFERSON DAVIS

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 877

and seemingly impracticable, though time has shown them
to be as practicable as they were true. Seward would have
no dealings with unrighteousness; he would not believe that
this people needed for their safety to compromise with evil ;
rather did he have faith that their only real safety lay in
doing right and trusting to God for the consequence. There
is a higher law, he affirmed, than that of worldly prudence;
and to that law he summoned us to be loyal. But he was
heard with ears which for the most part were unbelieving.
Calhoun, who made his last appearance in the Senate on this
occasion, left it anathematizing this new man with his Pro-
methean sword; and died within the month.

The immediate upshot of the debate was, that no one
except Benton stood by the President; Clay and Webster,
standing together against Taylor, divided the Whigs; it
seemed an opportunity for the Democrats. A committee
was got together to discuss the subject, Clay being chair-
man ; it consisted of thirteen members, six Northerners and
six Southerners besides Clay himself. Webster, though ap-
pointed, did not serve. While the committee was discussing,
the treaty was signed which Clayton and Sir Henry Bulwer
negotiated, regarding a proposed Nicaragua canal ; the terms
of which were that neither England nor the United States
were to have exclusive control of it, and that no colonizing
should take place; but it later transpired that England was
secretly holding in reserve her alleged protectorate rights.
The Canal, however, still remains in the limbo of projects
unachieved.

Clay's committee reported in May; it inspired no enthu-
siasm, and the President was against it, though not demon-
stratively so. Congress showed a disposition to disentangle
the California matter from the rest, and pass it independ-
ently. Southern extremists wished Texas to accomplish her
desigus on New Mexico by force; but the sturdy President
was standing square in the way. The boundary must be
settled, he said, not by Texas nor by New Mexico, but by

87$ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the United States, which was New Mexico's guardian during
her minority as a territory. He sent Colonel Monroe with
troops to oppose the attempt at invasion of the Texans.
When Crawford, the son of the Crawford of Jackson's era,
refused to sign the order as Secretary of War, "Then I'll
sign it myself, ' ' said the old soldier. And events were draw-
ing to an interesting climax, when Taylor, stricken by chol-
era, suddenly died. Never did an American President, so
far as one can humanly judge, die at a moment apparently
so inopportune. "I've tried to do my duty," was his last
utterance, on that 9th of July which was his last of earth.
He had surely done his duty, with a purity and firmness
never surpassed. He had done it well, as well as faithfully,
and he was daily learning how to do it better. He loved the
Union as much as Clay and Webster professed to do, but he
would defend it not by compromises, but by putting down
treason with the strong hand. He saw things in the large
and the mass, and understood the right course to steer.
Had he lived another year, either the war of secession would
have taken place with him in the saddle for the Union, or it
would never have taken place at all. But he died, because
his time was come ; and so made way for the immortal career
of Lincoln.

Millard Fillmore, a good Whig, took the oath as Presi-
dent the same day that Taylor died. He was under the
Webster-Clay influence, and Seward found his weight with
the administration correspondingly decreased. The entire
Cabinet resigned, and were replaced by Clay men. They
were good men, and Webster was Secretary of State; but
they made a cipher of the President. They favored compro-
mise and conciliation; and the fate of Clay's bill, which had
lately seemed so precarious, now bloomed with promise.
But an unlooked-for spasm of virility in the Senate upset the
"Omnibus" and from the disjected members framed new
bills. It was found easier to pass the several parts when
thus separated, than the whole in a lump ; but of course the

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 879

separation also modified the effect of the parts. To the out-
side mind, the difference might seem like that historic one
'twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee ; but the Congressional
mind is on the inside always. The Clay Omnibus was set
up, and patched together, and set a-going on its appointed
course, looking quite the same as before the accident. Texas
was bought off with a good slice of New Mexico and ten
million dollars (of which Congress got its share); New
Mexico and Utah were admitted territories, with option as
to slavery ; California was admitted on her own basis ; and
so on. Fillmore signed the bills as fast as they came in, the
fugitive slave bill along with the rest. Clay retired, satis-
fied that he had saved the Union. Fillmore countermanded
Taylor's military orders regarding the Texan revolt; and
Webster was busy arguing down plain morality. But all
his cringing under the Southern whip seemed to leave the
South still unsatisfied ; a convention of slave states to agree
upon secession was called for ; but either because they had
no obvious leader to unite under, or because they began to
think that they could get all they wanted without secession,
no overt act of disloyalty was carried out. Give us back
our runaway slaves, and never mention the word slavery
in our hearing, and we may condescend to live with you—
was the gist of the Southern dictum to the North. Still
if a Northerner but ventured to look hard at a Southern
gentleman, the threat of secession rang in his ears. Clay
alone was superior to this petulance; "Never," he declared
before the Kentucky legislature, "would I consent to a dis-
solution of the Union. If Congress ever usurps the power to
abolish slavery in the states where it exists — but I am sure it
will never do so — I will yield." This was manly on Clay's
part, and all very well ; but the fugitive slave act could not
fail to breed serious trouble at once; and the law giving new
states the option of slavery or freedom would do so later
on. By the fugitive slave law, federal officers became slave
hunters throughout the free states; they could arrest any

880 HISTORY OF THE UiNITED STATES

negro without recourse or need of identification, and under
any circumstances. That their action was legal, and that
the South could get back its fugitives in no other way, were
facts which had no effect in reconciling the North to the
edict ; there were many cases of resistance and rescue in Bos-
ton and elsewhere; and Webster was sedulous in prosecut-
ing them, while the Attorney- General, Crittenden, declared
the act to be constitutional. There is no question that the
South and the administration were in the right in enforcing
the law, since it existed ; and if it ought not to have existed,
why did not the North prevent it in Congress? If slavery
were to be tolerated at all, then fugitive slaves were like
runaway cattle, and honest folk were bound to return them
to their owners. One of the plainest lessons of the situation
was, that the people were no longer represented by Con-
gress. But that was the people's fault. Webster arraigned
Reward for venturing to set private conscience above law;
a New York Whig convention split, some adhering to Fill-
more and Webster, with the title of "silver-grays," the
others to Seward. Fusions with Democrats began. Bout-
well was elected governor of Massachusetts by a coalition
of Democrats and Free-soilers. Hamilton Fish, a Seward
Whig, was elected to the House in New York. In Ohio,
a free-soil state, Ben Wade, strongly anti-slavery, took the
place of the veteran Ewing. Charles Sumner beat Win-
throp for the Senate. Sumner was a big, good-looking,
voluble Boston Brahmin, with high pretensions to culture,
and hyperion hair; but he was a good offset to the arro.
gance of the Southern slaveholders in the Senate, being
able, so far as words went, to give them quite as good as
they brought. No one could exasperate them as he could ;
no one heeded their sensibilities so little as he; until the
memorable time when they succeeded in getting rid of him,
for a while, by other arguments than those of reason. But
in fact, reason's rale was over in America for the present.
There were party fighting and tr***«rf ormation scenes all over

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 881

the country. At this juncture, Fillmore's message cried
" Peace — Peace!" when there was no peace; and Congress
did nothing, nor was anything intelligible heard, except the
tones of Clay's voice, preaching mutual forbearance.

But the people were tired of contention on the one mo-
notonous point of slavery, and were also bewildered by the
spectacle of men in whose integrity they could hardly help
confiding, exhorting them to submission to the law, whether
or not it conformed to what had vulgarly been considered
morality. They needed a rest ; and if persons more intellect-
ual and better informed than they assured them that rest
was not only compatible with honor, but essential to the
preservation thereof, why should they not believe it? Seces-
sionists at the South and Abolitionists at the North were
alike reproved, not too violently; and the government sought
to interest the nation in matters of commonplace business.
The irreconcilables in the South amused themselves with
plans of Central American and Cuban acquisitions, which
took form in numerous filibustering expeditions, which met
with uniform disaster; the final attempt on the part of the
adventurer Lopez to stampede Cuba being extinguished by
the killing or shooting of the entire band of five hundred
men, and the "garotting" of the leader. Meanwhile the
work of the country went on; railways were vigorously
developed; the Collins Line of American steamers rivaled
the Cunarders as an Atlantic ferry; the telegraph was ex-
tended, and the hum of industry was everywhere heard.
Webster toured about the land making "compromise"
speeches, and extolling the sanctity of the Constitution
and the Union; meeting with applause everywhere save
in stern Massachusetts, where the Boston aldermen voted
to close Faneuil Hall against him. Jenny Lind came to
add her matchless voice to the chorus of harmony; and
Louis Kossuth, picturesque and heroic, and charmingly elo-
quent even in the English tongue, tried to woo us to come
across the ocean and fight for Hungarian independence

882 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

against Austria. We cheered him, caressed him, passed
resolutions and made speeches supporting his plea; but in
the end, of course, were fain to let him depart with his mis-
sion unaccomplished. The gift that he lacked was the sense
of humor which should have prevented him from expecting
aid to freedom from a country which had just given its in-
dorsement to slavery. But we could console ourselves, if
not him, by celebrating the victory of our yacht " America' '
over the Queen's fleet at Cowes Regatta — the race in which
there "was no second." We could build fast ships, at any
rate!

All this while, the Democrats, in one way or another,
had been pushing to the front, or toward it ; and the appar-
ent disposition at the South to let a Northern man have the
Presidency gave them a better outlook than the Whigs. It
was this campaign which first identified the Democratic party
with the South ; although the Whigs were the party of wealth
and aristocracy, the South trusted more in the loyalty of the
Democrats to those principles which they deemed vital. The
Whigs omitted no act or profession of subservience which
might ingratiate them with the South in the premises, and
men like Cass and Buchanan tried to out- Herod Herod in
their protestations ; but that sort of thing may be overdone.
The conventions of the two parties met in June, 1852, the
fatal last year of Whigism. They had had the greatest
statesmen in their ranks that America had produced ; they
had every opportunity to leave a record commensurate with
their ability ; but they had been timid and time-serving, and
full of misfortunes. Now they were to suffer a crushing
defeat, and their two chief champions were to die within
five months of each other. Such were the contents of the
immediate future ; but the party went on hoping and schem-
ing, if not rejoicing; and the coming event did not cast its
shadow before. They had three chief candidates — Fillmore,
Webster, and Winfield Scott. It was Webster's final effort,
and as such he recognized it; and he would certainly not

THE LAST OF THE WHIGS 883

have entered the race had he not hoped to win. He could
not but believe that the invaluable support he had given the
South would earn their gratitude; and he had omitted no
means of persuading the North that the Compromise was
their salvation as well. If he was not the representative
American, who was? — and should not the representative
American be the Americans' leader? Certainly Webster
had one of the greatest brains of his century ; and we may
believe that he had at heart almost solely the welfare of his
country, vitiated in a degree though that may have been
with a deep-seated, life-long, passionate desire for his own
personal triumph. But nothing is better established than
that brains do not win the suffrages for the highest office
of the brainiest people in the world — if we indeed are that.
"What exactly is sure to win their suffrages is another and
far more abstruse question, into the intricacies of which we
will not enter ; but a predominating brain is not trusted ; its
possessor is too clever for common people to be sure what he
may do. Had Lincoln's great brain not been balanced by a
heart even greater, he would never have led this country
through the Civil War ; nor, of course, would he have been
Lincoln.

The Democratic convention met first, on the 1st of June,
and after five days' warm work, gave up the attempt to win
with either Cass, Buchanan, Douglas or Marcy, and under
the Jacksonian two-thirds rule, unexpectedly united upon the
comparatively unknown Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire
and of the Mexican War. He was a man who, without
having committed himself one way or the other, had made
no enemies, but was liked by all. A fortnight later the
Whigs came together. Their platform was substantially
the same as the Democrats' —support of the Compromise of
1850; but with the delicate modification, which they tried
to refine to its least substantiality, that should time and
experience demand further legislation— why, it might be
effected. Gentle though the hint was, the South caught

884 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

it up at once, and grew savagely suspicious. Nevertheless,
their array of candidates was so imposing, that one could
hardly believe that they could all fail. The first votes
showed Fillmore leading with 133 votes, Scott second with
131, and Webster almost out of sight in the rear with 29
only. But Webster believed that Fillmore would retire in
his favor; he had also hoped that Clay, whose word was
still potent in the party, would have declared for him ; but
in both expectations he was disappointed. Fillmore would
not retire, and Clay had given his preference for Scott; and
in the end, the vote stood, Scott 159, Fillmore 112, and
Webster 21. That vote broke Webster's heart. Yet he
survived Clay, who died soon after the Whig convention
adjourned. There is deep pathos, if not tragedy, in the
story of these two great men, who lost the crown for which
they strove for the very reason that they strove for it so
hard. Theirs was a noble ambition, but it sometimes stooped
to means that were not noble to win. Of the two, Clay, per-
haps, has the purer fame ; but when we look for the benefits
which Clay and Webster actually accomplished, we cannot
but be amazed to find them so small. They concentrated
the gaze of their contemporaries ; they reached the topmost
heights of oratory ; they advocated and opposed many meas-
ures; but after all, we cannot deny that the country might
have been better off politically if neither of them had entered
public life.

At the polls, Pierce defeated Scott by a vote of 254 to 42.
The Free-soilers showed no strength. The great Whig party
disappeared from history, and left behind it no lasting or
valuable achievement. It had tried to do things impossible,
and had shrunk from doing what it might have done. But
it sowed the seeds of a successor which was to win the
greatest glory that had ever fallen to an American party.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST

KANSAS

OU may see a ship slipping smoothly through
the blue ripples of a summer sea, with the
sunshine broad on her sails and deck, and mu-
sical breezes whispering through her shrouds :
and right across her path, dark, and lurid
with strange hues, the awful menace of an
approaching hurricane. Here is peace and well-being ; yon-
der, war and destruction. Is the helmsman asleep? If not,
let him furl those white sails betimes and batten down his
hatches, or his ship will be crushed and sunk.

Fillmore, the amiable nonentity, firm only in his docility
to the great men about him, had left the helm of State with
warm prosperity all around him. He passed smiling over
the side, and was carried safe ashore. He gave no warning
order; he himself saw nothing to fear. Yet the tempest
was all but on us; you might hear the moan of its rage
from afar. And mainsail and foresail, stun 'sail and topsail,
were spread abroad, and the Stars and Stripes, emblem of
freedom and power, floated aloft.

Meanwhile, upon the quarter-deck, appears the new com-
mander, cheerful, hopeful and resolute ; honest and faithful
too, and a sailor born. He marshals his crew and issues his
orders; he explains to his officers the course he will steer
and what port he means to make. There is no apprehen-
sion in his bearing; he is proud of his ship; he has confi-

(885)

886 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

dence in his men, and they in him. He has a good brain, a
brave heart, and a firm will. All is well ; hear the shouting
of the multitude from the wharf ! And yet captain, crew,
and shouting multitude, all are blind. The hurricane will
smite the Ship of State, and she will lie on her beam ends,
with the seas breaking heavily across her, her flag rent, her
masts gone by the board. It shall be by the mercy of God
only that she does not founder and go down.

Optimism and self-confidence are good qualities in a man
or in a nation ; but they should be molded by foresight and
reason. It seems incredible, now, that we could have headed
into the Kansas troubles, and through them into the Civil
War, without realizing it. Yet so it was. It is useless to
assert that we were shipwrecked deliberately. South Caro-
lina had prattled of secession, no doubt, as a pretty woman
threatens her husband with leaving him if he does not buy
her a new bonnet ; but nothing serious was meant. Aboli-
tionists clamored for virtue or non-intercourse, and a million
people read Harriet Beecher Stowe's new book; but the
great common -sensible populace took it all with allowances,
and said to themselves that the worst was probably over.
Folks might chop at the Union with their little hatchets,
but it would stand a great deal of such attack ; and they
might criticise the Constitution, but it was a very wise old
document after all, and could be made wiser if necessary.
That fugitive-slave law was a nuisance, of course; a man
doesn't like to have his house entered by a sheriff, and the
attic and cellar ransacked for stray niggers; but, if he har-
bored the nigger, he knew what he was risking. As to the
menace of slaveholding invading free states, that was all
talk ; what would they do there if they came? Besides, had
not the Missouri Compromise settled all that? The South
had all she wanted, with Cuba and the Isthmus in the back-
ground, perhaps; she did not want to interfere with the
North, any more than the North wanted to meddle with
her. Some of us like one thing, and some another ; this is

KANSAS 887

a big country; but we are all Americans, and we can live
and let live, and make money hand over fist.

Such was the general attitude of the country; if there
were nervous persons here and there who mouthed disaster,
such we have always with us. Franklin Pierce was a New
Hampshire boy ; he had showed the stuff he was made of in
the Mexican War ; he was clean-handed and incorruptible ;
he would be certain to do the North justice, and if he was
fair to the South too, that is only what a President ought
to be. He was a young man, too : barely fifty : and youth,
with its courage, and its freedom from hampering entangle-
ments, is a good ingredient in politics. He meant to do
right, and so did we all; so how could things go wrong?

The fact is that a man or a nation may do right, while
going all the while in a wrong direction ; and it is the direc-
tion that tells. We were started on a wrong course; we
were setting logical consistency against human nature ; and
the more correct and logical our consistency, the more certain
were we to meet disaster. The Constitution had been so in-
terpreted by the leaders of opinion as to sanction the Mis-
souri Compromise and the fugitive slave law; the Consti-
tution also permitted citizens of one state to reside in any
other ; the domestic concerns of individuals were of course
sacred; and the extent of state rights was still undeter-
mined, but the tendency of late had been to enlarge them.
The existence of all these ingredients of gunpowder was con-
ceded ; there seemed to be no harm in any of them ; and the
fact that their combination would produce an explosion was
not considered till too late.

• On the journey to Washington a tragic accident befell
the party of the President-elect. There was a railway col-
lision ; the car in which Pierce, his wife, and their son were
sitting was shattered, and the little boy was crushed where
he sat by a beam. Mrs. Pierce did not see the horror; and
her husband, in the midst of his anguish, thought first of
her, and quickly threw his cloak over the dreadful spectacle.

888 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

This act was characteristic of Pierce, who ever thought of
others before himself. Many years afterward, when he was
standing beside the grave of his wife, to whom he had been
devotedly attached, listening to the words of the burial ser-
vice, a life-long friend stood beside him. The winter wind
blew cold across the grave; and Pierce, solicitous even in
that moment for his friend, passed a hand over his shoul-
der to turn up the collar of his coat against the blast. The
fiber of the man was intensely masculine, and his physical
strength was exceptional : deep chest, lean flanks, wiry and
tireless limbs : but with this masculine strength went an ex-
quisite natural tenderness and courtesy, coming from the
heart, and enriched with human sympathy. Once, when
the daughter of a friend was lying ill of a disease which
was likely to end fatally, Pierce used to come to the house
day after day, and sit for an hour or so in the room with the
anxious family ; saying little, making no demonstration ; but
permeating and strengthening all with his deep, loving sym-
pathy. Children loved him, and men and women acknowl-
edged his sway. He was a conscientious man, with a high
ideal of rectitude and duty. Like other public men of his
time, he was accustomed to drink, occasionally to excess, and
his strong social qualities aided this tendency ; but when he
entered the Presidential office, he wholly abstained from
wine or liquor during his entire term. He was a striking
figure to look at, erect and soldierly to the end of his life,
with a step full of power; his hair was black and wiry,
bushing at the ends. Such was the man who, because he
steadily pursued the course that he believed to be right,
made himself during his term, from one of the most popu-
lar, the most unpopular man who had held the office of
President. Like Clay and Webster, he loved and cherished
the Union ; on assuming the reins of authority, he accepted
things as he found them, and resolutely carried out the
policy which his party authorized, and which he deemed
best for the country. But Pierce's penetrating gray eyes

KANSAS 889

could see only straight ahead ; the path of what he thought
his duty was narrow ; and it led to calamity.

At first, however, all promised well, and the energy of
the country was shown in the variety and energy of its
activities. Traffic increased; the scandals of the municipal
government of New York under Fernando "Wood were
already notorious; San Francisco was growing great under
the stern rule of its Vigilance Committee; Oregon was be-
coming steadily populous; Lucretia Mott was setting in mo-
tion that movement for women's rights which claimed for
the sex all masculine things, from trousers to the suffrage;
and which is only now beginning to realize that women's
privileges go further and fare better; and Neal Dow, the
best exemplar of the value of his own opinions, was found-
ing the Temperance Society. In short, our people were
entering into the detail of life on all sides, trying experi-
ments, laughing at failures, profiting by both failures and
successes. Meanwhile Pierce, under agreeable auspices,
was selecting his Cabinet, whose most prominent members
were Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, William Marcy,
Secretary of State, and Caleb Cushing, Attorney-General.
Davis and Cushing seemed most near to the President;
Marcy was older than the others, and less pronounced in his
views. James Buchanan was sent to England. The Presi-
dent's address foreshadowed a reasonable home policy, and
a firm foreign one; he pledged himself to carry out the
Compromise of 1850; and throughout expressed a hearty
confidence in the country's future. It was noticed that the
Cabinet had rather a Southern look to it, as a whole; but
since Pierce himself was Northern, that was good policy.

The first salient event of the administration confirmed the
current good opinion of it. A Hungarian named Koszta, of
revolutionary proclivities, was arrested in Smyrna by the
Austrians, and was on the point of being carried into cap-
tivity, when our Captain Ingraham, who commanded a
sloop of war, interfered, on the ground that Koszta was an
U.S.— 38 Vol. III.

Sgo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

embryo American citizen; and threatened to bombard the
Austrian brig if he were not given up. Marcy backed
Ingraham up, and declared the rights all over the world
of American citizens: much to the delight of our citizens
at home, who have not always been so well vindicated since
then. But it was plain that Pierce had not done all his
fighting in Mexico; and the intimation from a member of
his Cabinet that the annexation of further outlying territory
would not necessarily meet with the opposition of the govern-
ment was also taken in good part. The World's Fair opened
in New York, in emulation of that in England, and was
regarded as a good sign, though its financial success was
not what might have been wished ; but, upon the whole, we
appeared to be getting on, and to be a great nation already.
In this way we had covered the space between the inaugura-
tion and 1854. Then, all of a sudden, Stephen A. Douglas,
a Vermont politician, at this time about forty-two years old,
introduced what was known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
Not much notice of Douglas had hitherto been taken by the
country, though in Congress he was known as an effective
speaker of the coarsely vigorous kind. He was small in
stature, but with the voice of a stentor, and an uproarious
manner of speaking, waving his arms, bellowing manfully
in the ardent passages, and tearing off his stock in the heat
of action to give himself breathing room. These intimations
of the pressure of a great soul upon a small body caused him
to get the nickname of the Little Giant. He was a Demo-
crat, sprung from the ranks, but allied in sentiment with
the South, and in favor of annexing territory in their behalf.
That he was ambitious is certain ; and he had brains above
the average ; nor was he incapable of making his brains serve
his ambition at the expense of what are ordinarily termed
scruples. He perceived his advantage in ingratiating himself
with the South, which seemed likely to hold the reins of
power for some time to come; and he was young enough
to afford to wait some years for the Presidency, though not

KANSAS 891

too young to begin to play for those great stakes. The
Kansas-Nebraska bill seemed to him a good way of begin-
ning.

The essence of his political idea in the bill was to develop
the discrepancy between the Missouri Compromise and the
Compromise of 1850. The first forbade slavery above 36° 30' :
the latter made slavery optional in all new territories.
Douglas conceived — as the conditions gave him the right
to do — that the Compromise of 1850 annulled the other.
For if new territories could admit slaves if they liked, then
by what authority could the restriction of 36° 30' be applied
to them? If they happened to be south of the line, of course
whatever force the restriction might have would be in favor
of slavery ; but if they were above the line, then they were
justified in declaring that the later bill annulled the earlier
one. For a hard and fast line, which was sure to do injus-
tice to some one, was substituted the free choice of the
settlers in the region ; the wishes of the majority should rule
them, as the Constitution declared and intended should be
the case. Furthermore, the measure was rigidly impartial as
between North and South; because, if a community south
of the old line should prefer to dispense with slaves, they
would be just as free to do so as would be the settlers in a
northern district to introduce them. It was in accordance
with the spirit of all American institutions that the people
should live as they chose within the due limits of the law.
This bill was not a slave measure any more than it was a
free-soil measure ; it was a national measure, and was in the
line of true progress and development.

By what arguments should the position taken by this bill
be overthrown? It could not be overthrown by any argu-
ment of principle; could it have been, this would of course
have been done. It was vindicated by the Compromise of
1850, which had been passed by Congress and acquiesced in
by the whole nation; which says that whenever Nebraska
(or other territorj^) applied for admission, it should be at

892 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

liberty to do so "with or without slavery. " And this was
a knife that cut both ways ; for what was to prevent the
inhabitants of some southern region, applying for admission,
from stipulating that slavery should not exist within their
limits, and thus introducing free soil into the heart of slave-
dom? The Southerners, in accepting the 1850 Compromise,
had accepted this contingency ; and it would be unjust of the
North not to do as much. In fact, there, already, was Cali-
fornia, part of which extended below 36° 30', which had
come in as a free state, because the majority of its populace
so desired. Turn and turn about is fair play.

The most obvious method of attack upon the bill was to
maintain that the Missouri Compromise was not annulled
by that of 1850. By way of testing this point, Dixon of
Kentucky moved to amend the bill by repealing the Missouri
Compromise. This prompted Douglas so to modify his bill
as to pronounce the Missouri Compromise explicitly void;
and it divided Nebraska into two territories, one called
Nebraska, the other Kansas; in which popular or " squatter"
sovereignty should obtain. "The object is not to admit or
exclude slavery," said Douglas, "but to remove whatever
obstacles Congress has placed in the way of it, and to apply
to all our territories the doctrine of non-intervention."
Should Congress, after debate, admit that the Missouri
Compromise was void, what other objection could the op-
ponents of the bill urge against it?

Before submitting it to debate, Douglas caused its pro-
visions to be laid before Pierce by a committee of which
Jefferson Davis, who approved the bill, was a member.
Pierce listened to the reading of the bill, and then said,
according to the report, "I consider the bill based upon a
sound principle which the Compromise of 1820 infringed
upon, and to which we have now returned." This was the
first that Pierce had heard of the bill, and that was his
opinion upon it. Davis himself, it may be observed, had
violently opposed the 1850 Compromise; he wished the 36°

KANSAS 893

30' line to be carried to the Pacific. Manifestly he had
undergone a change of heart, since the Douglas bill was
built out of the materials furnished by the 1850 act. As a
matter of fact, he had opposed the latter without due con-
sideration; now that he realized what could be done with
it, his opposition vanished. As to the President, he could
have no choice, as a Constitutional Executive, but to
declare that the bill was in his opinion strictly Constitu-
tional. He was there not to make laws, nor to find fault
with them after they had been made; but simply to see
that they were enforced. He could see no Constitutional
flaw in Douglas's bill, and he so declared. Whether he
personally Uked it or not is another question, having no
bearing upon his course. The President has great power,
and is able in a degree to influence legislation; and Pierce,
had he disliked this bill, and been able to give sound
reasons against it, might have vetoed it when it came
officially before him. But Pierce was a Democrat; he did
not believe in antagonizing slaveholders or in abolishing
slavery ; and if the whole nation should express a desire for
the extension of slavery, he would not have hindered them,
any more than he would have hindered free soil extension,
had that been the national preference. Obviously he could
not foresee the disturbance and disorder which the squatter-
sovereignty bill would make; neither could Douglas. The
commencement of the mischief ante-dated all of them ; it lay
in allowing slavery to overstep its original boundaries at the
time the Constitution was adopted. Had an amendment to
that effect been carried then, as it probably might have been,
all would have been well now ; but what had been done since
was all in the nature of a corollary; and all we can say
against the South' s conduct, up to the time they seceded, is,
that if they had shown less arrogance and been more for-
bearing, the only harm done by slavery would have been
confined to the original slave states.

The attitude of Davis, however, is significant, and typifies

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

that of the whole South. He and the South knew that,
apart from abstractions, the Douglas bill would benefit them
and not the North. No Southern communities would arise
desiring the abolition of slavery within their boundaries;
there was no propaganda in that direction; the only propa-
ganda was that of slavery toward the North. Their asser-
tion that the bill was impartial as between South and North
was therefore lacking in candor ; it was impartial in theory,
but not in fact. Had the bill been equally favorable to both
sections, it would have met with no opposition from the
North; had it been equally hostile to both, it would never
have been passed. It is to be observed, moreover, that
although the interpretation of the 1.850 Compromise was
legally correct, the present outcome of it had not been real-
ized by the people at the time ; and it took them by surprise.
We may say it was their fault ; eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty, and a free people are bound to foresee all contin-
gencies of any act which their representatives pass. But in
practice, the people commonly attend to their private busi-
ness, and let politicians manage their politics; and though
it is the duty of the politicians to protect the people against
their own heedlessness, the counsel is one of perfection, and
is not observed in practice.

The debate on the bill began in January and lasted
nearly till June. Clay and "Webster being no more, the
debate lacked the eloquence it would otherwise have had;
but Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Sumner were arrayed
against the bill, and it made their reputations. They had
not much logical material to work with, but they made a
stubborn fight. The bill discharged Congress of responsi-
bility for the doings of the territories ; and it did not specify
at what period the exclusion or adoption of slavery in a terri-
tory should be determined. This was a fault of detail, how-
ever— not of principle. The North as a whole took the
ground, instinctively, of protesting against the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise. Popular speakers declared the bill to

KANSAS 895

be a slaveholder's plot to spread slavery over the Union.
But to ascribe sinister motives to a given action is not the
same thing as proving the action itself to be unlawful. Be
that as it might, the indignation aroused by the bill at the
North was vehement ; the friendly feeling towai d the South,
which had been growing up, was dispersed at once. The
battle was fought in the Senate with no mincing of phrases ;
but the majority was in its favor, and the vote which sent
it to the House on the 3d of March was a majority of twenty-
three. The House resorted to all manner of parliamentary
tactics, in addition to mere argument, to support or defeat
the measure ; but on the 22d of May tactics came to an end,
and the bill was passed, with unimportant amendments, by
113 to 100. The Senate now reconsidered it, and passed
it on May 26th without a division. On the 30th it went to
the President, who signed his name to it, and it became the
law of the land. The peculiar feature of this lamentable
affair is, that the bill was an entirely gratuitous one. The
settlers in Nebraska had never asked for it ; they had assumed
that the 36° 30' line settled their status. Had it not been for
Mr. Douglas, reasoning in vacuo, the bill might never have
been born. That it was born, therefore, lends color to the
suspicion that Douglas may have conspired with certain
Southern leaders to take this means of advancing slavery.
That is an inference, and a strong one ; but of positive proof
there is none. Douglas must bear the odium of the doubt.
But the plot, if there were one, was very limited in its mem-
bership ; the South at large, in and out of Congress, however
much the bill may have gratified them, had no more to do
with it than to take it when it was offered them. "Whoever
else was in the plot, Pierce certainly was not ; he had noth-
ing to gain by the bill, and it cost him his political future.
He acted from conscience solely; and he accepted the conse-
quences without flinching.

After Congress had had its say, the people began to be
heard; and their first demonstration was at Boston. Owing

896 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to an indiscretion, the presence in the house of a Boston citi-
zen of a fugitive slave, Anthony Burns by name, was re-
vealed; and a sheriff came to Boston and tried in vain to
persuade the man to return with him peaceably. He then
brought a writ of arrest. When this became known, there
was a riot, which could barely be put down by military
force. A meeting convened in Faneuil Hall, and "Wendell
Phillips and Theodore Parker fanned its flames. The ex-
citement continued for a week; a rescue was tried and
failed. Another week was consumed in the trial of the
case before Commissioner Loring. The only possible result
occurred; Burns was decided to be a fugitive slave, and it
was decreed that he return to slavery. The law must be
obeyed; but the Boston people were very angry, and their
anger generally had meant something. They draped their
houses in black, and hissed the procession that took Burns
to the ship; and he was the last fugitive slave to be taken
out of Boston.

The fugitive slave law had no ostensible connection with
the Squatter Rights bill; but the inflammation caused by
the latter affected the Northern sensitiveness regarding the
former. The judge who tried the case was dismissed, for
deciding it according to law ; inventions were elaborated to
defeat the law by delays, if it could not be broken ; and as
for Anthony Burns, he was bought back from his Southern
master by subscriptions and enabled to become a free Bos-
tonian. Possibly the South would have been willing to ac-
cept an extension of the same idea, and sell all its slaves to
the ISTorth at a fair price ; but the proposition was not made.

"Whatever happened now was interpreted as a new symp-
tom of Southern plots against the peace and liberty of the
realm. General Quitman, an inextinguishable disquietist,
made fantastic efforts to capture Cuba; the Cuban govern
ment had seized our ship, "Black Warrior," in a high-handed
way, calling forth a stern message from Pierce; and our
relations with Spain were temporarily clouded; Quitman

KANSAS 897

had few followers in the South, but he was regarded in the
North as the would-be founder of an independent Southern
empire. "Walker of Nicaragua (as he was later called) sailed
with a picturesque band of adventurers for La Paz, in South-
ern California, and appropriated the place, issuing a pictur-
esque proclamation to the inhabitants ; but the support he
had counted on failed him, and he had to come back. Gads-
den made an official treaty with Mexico, fixing our boundary-
line a little further south, in order to get space for a pro-
jected railway. The North regarded all these movements
with the same suspicion; though only the latter had the
support of the administration ; Pierce rigidly suppressed the
filibustering tendency, to the disappointment of Southern
agitators; but he was as alert to enforce the Constitution
against them as he had been to declare the validity of the
Kansas-Nebraska bill. Both sides called him sectional, be-
cause he was impartial.

But it was impossible for him, or for any man, to please
both sides in this quarrel. If he kept his oath to preserve
the Constitution and the Union, he must inevitably anger
first one party and then the other, or both at once. The
people and the Constitution — or the several interpretations
of it — were at odds; Sumner touched the point when he
replied to Butler, "I swore to support the Constitution as I
understood it — not as it was understood by others." The
divergence between the two sides was of sentiment and
morality, and the attempt of either to support it on legal
grounds was natural, but futile. It would have to be ac-
commodated, if at all, in other ways.

The fear of slavery extension, the danger of which was
real, but immensely exaggerated, drove the discordant par-
ties of the North to make common cause ; free Democrats,
old Whigs, Free-soilers, rallied under a common impulse, and
assumed the collective title of Republicans : a title which the
Civil War made glorious, and which retained the confidence
of the people for the better part of a generation. Their

898 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

manifesto in Congress was issued by George W. Julian and
other reformers, and it affirmed that the free states had no
longer any guarantee for the freedom in territories which
former compromises had promised, and that with this guar-
antee had vanished all assurance of harmony and union be-
tween all the states. It charged that the South contem-
plated conquering or buying Cuba and parts of Mexico, and
seeking an alliance with Eussia against the other European
powers, taking advantage of the Crimean war. Brazil, ac-
cording to these memorialists, was to be made a center of
Southern slavery, and when all was prepared, the South
proposed to dissolve her connection with the rest of the
United States, and set up an empire of her own. Southern
leaders replied to the manifesto by remarking that they had
never seen a production which "contained in so few words
so much fiction and pure imagination." It is difficult, as
Burke had observed many years before, to draw an indict-
ment against a whole people ; there were men in the South
who aimed at all that Julian charged, and more ; but there
were innumerable more who projected or desired nothing of
the kind. These reachings-out into the unknown were a
natural manifestation of an active and restless race, avid of
new experiences ; but there was nothing awful or wicked in
them. And most of the people wished chiefly to stay at
home and mind their own business.

The movement to unite at the North was steady but not
so rapid as the extremists would have wished. State conven-
tions were called, and some progress was made. It was at
this time that the Know-Nothings became prominent; they
wished to "put none but Americans on guard" : — a sentiment
which was sure to find expression in a new nation which had
begun to feel the pressure of unassimilated material from the
old world, much of it of an aspect by no means attractive, or
even safe. There was a great deal of apparent justification
for it ; but it was impossible that it could long endure ; for
Americans are the world — the old world in the new. Roman

KANSAS 899

Catholicism came under the ban of the new society, which
was strictly secret in its operations ; but a war against a re-
ligious faith could never succeed in a land devoted to relig-
ious freedom. The Know-Nothings were strong for a while,
though never so strong as was imagined ; they got into poli-
tics, and nominated candidates; Gardner was elected gov-
ernor of Massachusetts by their ballots; but the attitude
of neutrality which they were obliged to assume between
slavery and its opponents was sure, at a time like this, to
bring them between the two stools to the ground, as soon as
they aimed at the Presidency. Only while the elements of
opinion were still in solution, before finally crystallizing,
could they, or any new combination, obtain a hearing.

Abroad, meanwhile, some minor treaties, looking to im-
provements of commercial relations, and of the fisheries,
were concluded; and at a conference of our ministers held
in Ostend in October, 1854, the purchase of Cuba from Spain
for a maximum sum of one hundred and twenty million dol-
lars was advocated. If Spain declined the transaction, the
suggestion was thrown out that we might compel her to
give it by force ; Russia acting as our ally and co-beneficiary
in the enterprise. But Pierce would not support any such
scheme ; Russia had enough to do with England and France
in the Crimea; and Spain made reparation for the "Black
Warrior" outrage. Soule, who had been our minister to
Spain, and the chief agent in the affair, resigned in discour-
agement and returned home. On the other hand, Perry
succeeded in establishing commercial relations with the hith-
erto hermit empire of Japan, and curiosities and utilities
from that fascinating corner of the world began to be seen
in the homes of the American people. But there was as yet
nothing cordial in the attitude of the shy and supercilious
antipodeans.

All this was by-play ; the real business before the coun-
try was the working out of the consequences of the Kansas
Nebraska bill. The South was somewhat puzzled by the at-

900 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

titude of the North; many Southerners believed what the
President had long before affirmed — that the bill favored
freedom, and that its passage would prevent the addition of
any more slave states to the Union. It was not likely, on
the face of it, that a territory north of 36° 30' would be set-
tled by more Southern than Northern men. But a panic
had been started at the North, and there is no reasoning
with panic. And again, the sight of this panic aroused the
South to its opportunity of rescuing the region in question
from the free soilers; and so the fight began. If the South
could not get Kansas, it could hope for nothing else above
36° 30'. Oregon, Minnesota, and the other northern territo-
ries were beyond Southern reach ; if the South could not ex-
pand northward, they were certain to be in a minority ere
long. And if, as they believed, Northern supremacy meant
abolition of slavery everywhere, evidently this was their
death-struggle as members of the Union. The only alter-
native was secession ; and that meant a death-struggle too.
But Missouri, a slave state, bordered upon Kansas, and
the South had a chance there. Living or roaming along the
border were numbers of rough characters, with a whisky
bottle in one pocket and a revolver in the other, who were
ripe for any enterprise. There was no real colonizing abil-
ity in the South ; they were lacking in the business faculty
which prevailed in the North — and assumed to be proud of
the fact ; but by means of this class of men they could seize
the land. There were already slaves in Kansas; and the
movement to take possession for slavery was led by Atchin-
son of Kentucky, j>resident of the Senate, a strong slavery
sympathizer and a man of defiant energy. The borderers
were ferried over the river in droves, and spread over the
country, founding pro-slavery towns, and making a great
noise for their side. They were not bona-fide settlers in
most cases; or they had residences on both sides of the
border, as political and other considerations might demand.
As no stipulation had been made by Douglas's bill as to the

KANSAS 901

time or manner in which the choice for or against slavery in
a territory should be made, there seemed every likelihood
that Kansas was lost to freedom.

But there were in the North also men of energy, not re-
strained by scruples too fine-spun. Eli Thayer was one of
these; and he suggested a plan for Northern colonization
of the disputed land. There was plenty of material in the
North ; free laborers and lusty emigrants, who were quali-
fied to take hold of a new country and reduce it to fruitful-
ness and civilization. Thayer, after some tentative agita-
tion, dubbed his plan the New England Emigration Aid
Society, and in July, 1854, it began operations. Other sim-
ilar Kansas Leagues were formed, and large bodies of free
soilers, with their wives and children, when they had any,
were transported to the point of interest. Hereupon String-
fellow, a supporter of Atchinson, tried to get Congress to
help arrange a Southern colonization scheme to counteract
the Northern one ; but though Southern members approved
the plan, they could not provide it with practical support ; so
Atchinson and Stringf ellow were forced to rely on maneu-
vers at the polls to effect what they could not do by more
legitimate means. They dumped hundreds of fraudulent
voters into the territory, who remained there only long
enough to flourish their revolvers, drink their whisky, and
cast as many votes as they pleased for slavery; and then
went home again. The Northern colonists had not pro-
vided themselves with any other tools than those of peace-
ful agriculture, and were somewhat overawed by these dem-
onstrations ; so that the total pro-slavery vote, when counted,
was a good deal more than the total number of genuine set-
tlers in the territory. A gentleman named Reeder, inclined
to anti-slavery, was sent out by Pierce as territorial gov-
ernor; and he remonstrated against a legislature elected in
a manner so transparently irregular. But the pro-slavery
party had judges as well as law-makers in their possession;
and the Chief -justice, Lecompte, a man unqualified for any

902 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

position of trust, decided all questions in their favor. The
legislature, meeting at Shawnee Mission, instead of at Paw-
nee, as the governor had directed, unseated all but a fraction
of the free-soil minority, and that fraction retired voluntarily
in dismay. Reeder still protesting, the now unanimous legis-
lature charged him with being corruptly interested in real
estate in Pawnee; and this accusation being supported in
ether quarters, was laid before Pierce, who, as in duty
bound, suspended Reeder from his office. Pro-slavery
measures of the most radical and menacing sort were
now passed by the legislature, and there was none to
say them nay.

But however corrupt might have been the means by
which this legislature got elected, and however violent
might be its behavior and measures, it was all done in
the form of law, and had legal sanction until, by Consti-
tutional means, it should be discredited. Any attempt to
ignore or supplant it otherwise would be revolutionary. It
was the misfortune of the Free-soil party to put themselves
in a revolutionary attitude ; and the circumstances went far
to justify them, since time was of importance in a struggle
of this kind, and unless something were done without wait-
ing for the slow processes of judicial examination, Kansas
would be lost forever. The pro-slavery party had committed
a crime, but under the screen of the law; the anti-slavery
people were doing right, but the law pronounced them
wrong. This state of things is always difficult to manage,
mi id those who engage in it must be prepared to take the
consequences.

The unauthorized convention of the Free-soilers met at
Lawrence, provided with that necessary adjunct of legisla-
tion in these times, a consignment of Sharpe's rifles, and led
by Robinson, an ex- Argonaut, familiar with bold proceed-
ings, but a man of pith and gravity. They repudiated the
Shawnee Mission assembly and its works, and summoned
two other conventions, at Big Springs, and finally at To-

KANSAS 903

peka. Reeder was chosen delegate to Congress, and elec-
tion day was appointed on October 9, 1855, a week or so
later than the election day of the " regular" legislature.
But the pro-slavery voters still distanced their rivals in the
fertility of their repeaters. Each party, of course, ignored
the other. In October the Free-soilers sent delegates to
Topeka to frame a constitution and apply for admission as
a state. At this juncture arrived on the scene the new gov-
ernor sent by Pierce to supply the place of Reeder; his name
was Shannon, and he was of a hasty temperament ; without
waiting to inquire into the merits of the case, he denounced
the Free-soilers as revolutionists, traitors, and breeders of
insurrection; all of which things they were, technically;
but in the condition that Kansas was, one should modify
one's expressions. As a matter of fact, they were honest
men, as this world goes, who were trying to remedy a cry-
ing abuse. There could be no possible agreement between
slaveholders and free-soilers living side by side in the same
territory or state ; and civil war really existed in posse, if not
in actuality.

The President's regular annual message was not strongly
accented as regarded Kansas ; but soon after he sent another
message to Congress which denounced the irregularity of the
late proceedings, and called for the repression of Reeder, who
had not yet purged himself of the charges which had com-
pelled his retirement. The message also called attention to
the unconstitutional character of the laws lately passed by
Massachusetts, forbidding any aid of State troops, officials
or buildings in executing the fugitive slave acts, and penaliz-
ing slave-hunters as kidnapers. This bill had been passed
over the governor's veto, and had been followed by the public
burning of a copy of the Constitution by Garrison, who had
solemnly decreed that "the Union must be dissolved. " Such
grotesque absurdities were perhaps not worth noticing; but
if they were noticed by the Executive, it could not be done
in terms more moderate than those he used. The situation

904 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was inevitably bad, and the less attention was called to it,
the better, for the present.

But hard words were common at this epoch; and Senator
Sumner paid dear for his contribution to the supply of them
in Congress. Sumner was a very egotistic and supercilious
personage, with a fine command of invective, and a scholarly
touch which was not always at the command of his Southern
opponents . In reply to their ' ' arrogant, old -plantation strain ' '
he brought shafts bitterly barbed, which exasperated his ad-
versaries none the less for the truth which winged many of
them. The custom in the South, among gentlemen, was to
resent an affront by some physical remonstrance, such as a
slap on the face, and then to await the demand of the smit-
ten party for the " satisfaction usual among gentlemen."
Sumner, a broad-shouldered, athletic man, in the prime of
his age and strength, had been particularly rasping to the
personal sensibilities of Butler of South Carolina, a man in
the decline of lif e. The latter made no demonstration ; but
he had a nephew, a young ass by the name of Preston Brooks ;
and Brooks, taking unto himself a friend of the same kind
and caliber named Keitt, went to the Senate Chamber two
days after Sumner's speech, and found the latter writing
quietly at his desk, and looking for anything but violence.
Brooks and Keitt had canes — that of Brooks being of black
rubber, not very formidable to look at, but capable of giving
a sharp and painful blow. Advancing abruptly upon the
seated Senator, "You have libeled the State of South Caro-
lina and my aged relative !" shouted the gentlemanly ruffian,
at the same time fetching the object of his rage a violent
blow on the head, which bewildered him and brought blood,
and following it up with many more blows on the back and
shoulders, until the cane was broken to pieces : the chivalric
Keitt, meanwhile, keeping off would-be rescuers by flourish-
ing his cane in their faces. Sumner could have annihilated
Brooks if only he could have got hold of him ; but his long-
legs were hampered by the desk, which was clamped to the

KANSAS 905

floor with iron screws, and he was unable to rise. The effort
he made to do so was so vigorous that it partly tore the desk
from its moorings, and strained his own back so severely that
for years he was a partial cripple. Having accomplished this
dastardly "vindication" of South Carolina and his aged rela-
tive, Brooks was removed ; and public sentiment would have
supported Sumner had he called him out and shot him. Men
who use words as Sumner used them should be prepared to
make them good in any manner the aggrieved may propose.
But Sumner was conscientiously opposed to dueling, and he
went to Europe to recover his health, and posed as the first
martyr of the anti-slavery cause ; while Brooks, having made
his one bid for immortality, expired by natural processes not
long after. History will probably decide that too much sym-
pathy was lavished upon Sumner ; but one can hardly be too
unrelenting in one's condemnation of Brooks, and of the type
he stood for.

In Kansas things continued to go from bad to worse.
Shannon, the new governor, demanded and got United
States troops to restore what he was pleased to call order;
and a pro-slavery mob marched on Lawrence and sacked
and wrecked it. A Congressional committee, of which John
Sherman, then a young man, was a member, was appointed
to go to Kansas and find out what really was the matter.
After examining and reducing to writing the testimony of
over three hundred witnesses of all shades of opinion, they
made a report declaring that the pro-slavery people were in
the wrong, and that Kansas ought by right to be a free state.
A bill to admit it accordingly under its Topeka constitution
was passed in the House, but could not get through the Senate.
Civil war of a desultory but very disturbing kind continued
in the unhappy country for some years longer; Governor
Shannon resigned his difficult functions in 1856, and was
succeeded by a son of Anak called Geary, who did the best
he could with a hopeless job, pending a final settlement.

The year before this, the filibuster Walker had under-

906 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

taken once more to redeem Central America from the evils
under which that fagot of countries was supposed to be suf-
fering. There had been a revolution in Nicaragua; and
Walker arrived there with his followers in season to set up
a native adventurer named Rivas as President, he assuming
the modest post of commander-in-chief, but, as a matter of
fact, pulling the strings of the administration. At his in-
stance, a minister was sent to Washington to demand rec-
ognition of the new Republic; and all being as regular as
Spanish- American affairs could ever be expected to be, the
President received the minister with courtesy. But Walker's
government did not last long; the other Central American
States combined against him, and he was forced to return
to America. But he was an irrepressible spirit, and only
death could quiet him. He met it in Honduras in 1860, in
accordance with the sentence of a native court-martial.

The fact that recruiting for the English army was proved
to have been carried on in Philadelphia and other American
towns, and that a British squadron had been offensively con-
spicuous in the West Indies, combined with disagreements
over the execution of the Clayton- Bui wer treaty, which
Buchanan had been unable to arrange, made war with Eng-
land again seem probable; and Pierce's message on the sub-
ject was decidedly warlike. But the English retired from
their position with unusual promptitude, and Lord Derby
made the most cordial professions of friendly regard. It
would be a curious speculation what effect this war, had
it broken out, would have had upon the relations between
South and North in America. Would a common cause have
renewed our Union? — or would the end have found us two
separate countries, with a divided and enfeebled destiny?
While we lament what we have suffered, we ma}' marvel
at what we have escaped.

The Free-soilers — not the detachment of them which had
been operating somewhat out of the regular line in Ka □ s,
but the national party known for a while under that name —

KANSAS 907

and the Democrats faced each other for the final struggle at
the polls. Pierce and Buchanan were the candidates of the
latter; the former chose Fremont. The Convention which
nominated him met in Pittsburgh, and officially adopted the
name of Republicans — the party of Reform. The Know-
Nothings nominated Fillmore, but they were overwhelm-
ingly defeated, and disappeared thenceforth from national
politics. The Republicans did not expect to win, but to pre-
pare the way for victory when their cause and aims should
have become better understood. They included many stray
remnants of minor organizations, and not a few wild-eyed
enthusiasts who wished reform to be carried to ideal lengths.
The platform declared for the Union and Constitution, re-
specting the rights of states, but giving Congress supreme
power in territories to prevent, not to encourage, slavery.
It called slavery and polygamy twin relics of barbarism,
and demanded their abatement. It asked the admission of
Kansas with a free constitution.

The National Democratic Convention met at Cincinnati,
and upheld the Kansas-Nebraska act, and the fugitive slave
law; recognized state rights within limits, and commended
the attempt to ameliorate the state of affairs in Central
America. It paid a high compliment to the administration
of Franklin Pierce ; but the shrewd politicians who composed
the Convention well knew that Pierce had been too stead-
fastly impartial in his loyalty to the Constitution to hope for
support either from South or North ; and the first ballot gave
Buchanan the advantage. Pierce presently withdrew his
name and the choice of Buchanan was made unanimous,
and the war of Secession inevitable. But, for that matter,
the South had already announced, through several of her
representative sons, that the election of Fremont would mean
disunion. We were drifting into the rapids.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND

JOHN BROWN

AMES BUCHANAN, in private life a bland and
entertaining old gentleman of between sixty
and seventy years of age, was, as President of
the United States, able to command the respect
and regard of neither South nor North. The
difference between him and Pierce, his prede-
cessor, and holding the same political faith, was marked.
The latter was a man of rigid principle, strictly impartial
between South and North, and resolved to uphold the Con-
stitution and preserve the Union, without regard to what men
or what party he might conciliate or alienate by so doing.
Because he satisfied his own conscience, he forfeited the
political support of party men on both sides, and went into
retirement because he was too courageous and sincere to
sacrifice conviction for place. Buchanan, on the contrary,
though he declared that he was no candidate for a second
term, and that he therefore could have no object in view but
the welfare of the country, was from the beginning an abject
truckler to Southern wishes and dictation. His principles
were a sickly mush of compromise, trickery, and underhand
intrigue in support of slavery. His public utterances were
uncandid and often prevaricating; his decisions were often
cowardly, and against the dictates of morality. Yet the
only reward he could hope to gain from this behavior was
the regard of the Southern planter aristocracy ; and even this
he failed of securing ; for the Southern planter was a man
(908)

JOHN BROWN 909

of spirit and honor, and though he would condescend to use
a tool like Buchanan, would kick him aside when he could
no longer serve his turn. This seems an anomaly : — that a
man of age and experience, with some reputation to lose,
should adopt a course so inexpedient, to say the least of it,
with no other result than the sort of pitying ignominy which
attaches to those who have done evil without being positively
evil themselves. The explanation is to be sought in the fiber
of the personal character : Buchanan was a sort of soft-nat-
ured snob, who dreaded stern collisions, and the forcing of
difficult passes; who wished everything to go with a smirk
and a slide, who courted the strongest, and who, believing
the Southerners to be the stronger, paid his assiduous court
to them. He tortured the unhappy Constitution to make it
fit their will, and even professed his services to alter it to suit
them if possible; he affronted morality, and juggled with
phrases, to make the worse appear the better reason ; but all
his labor and sweat were in vain ; he left the country on the
verge of the most dangerous abyss that could ever threaten
it, which might have been avoided altogether by a President
of firmness and moderate genius. He was an illustration of
the familiar fact that weak men do more harm than bad
men, in public as well as in private relations. Buchanan
had brains, sagacity and knowledge of affairs ; and he was
what ladies would call a nice old man ; there may have been
moments in our history when he might have filled the Presi-
dential office without doing any harm; but at this supreme
juncture he was no better fitted for it than would have been
an English butler, suave, apologetic and Jesuitical,

Hardly had he reached the steps of the White House
than he began his prevarication. His inaugural address
must perforce contain a reference to the burning question as
to whether slave owners might carry their slaves with im-
punity into free states; and it happened that the case of a
negro who had for several years posed as plaintiff in a typi-
cal action was about to be decided by the Supreme Court of

9io HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the United States. This negro, Dred Scott by name, had so
long ago as 1838 brought suit to recover his freedom on the
plea that his master had taken him into a free state; he had
been ever since used by lawyers on both sides of the question
as an anvil on which to hammer out their views and argu-
ments. After having won and lost several times, the mo-
ment for the final decision had arrived. Not only was the
Supreme Court about to pronounce its verdict, but it had
already arrived at it; and it is not to be supposed that the
President, with whose politics the majority of the Court was
in sympathy, could have been ignorant of the direction in
which their opinions would incline. Nevertheless, in his
inaugural, he deprecated excitement on the matter, remark-
ing that the judgment of the Court was about to be given,
and that whichever way it went, he should loyally uphold
it, and trusted the country would do the same. A few days
later, the judgment was pronounced, and it consigned Dred
Scott to slavery. Had this conclusion been reached before
the elections, it is nearly certain that Fremont instead of
Buchanan would have been President; for, coming as it did
on the top of the Kansas troubles, it would have warned the
people against admitting a slave sympathizer to the highest
office. Of the whole Bench, two judges only, McLean and
Curtis, dissented. The verdict had this peculiarity, that it
first disposed of the case by declaring that no negro of Afri-
can descent could be entitled to be plaintiff before a court.
This ended the matter : but after this the Court went on to
give a gratuitous opinion as to the merits of the situation.
Having denied the man's citizenship, they said that the Mis-
souri Compromise was illegal; that a slave could be carried
into any territory without thereby gaining immunity from
his status as a slave ; and that, in short, as the Chief -justice,
Taney, expressed it (the same man who, as Secretary of the
Treasury under Jackson, drew out the funds from the
United States Bank), the slave had no rights which white
men were bound to respect. The decision was founded

JOHN BROWN 911

on special reasoning, and ignored the true merits of the ques-
tion, as well as the views of such giants of Constitutional law
and the principles of human rights as Jefferson and the Eng-
lish Mansfield. Dred Scott, the individual, was afterward
freed by the voluntary act of his master; but the precedent
thus established remained as a menace to peace and freedom
in America.

Governor Geary of Kansas came up to Washington after
the inauguration to discover the drift of things, and perceiv-
ing that it was hostile to him, he resigned his office. R. J.
Walker, an honest man, was sent out as his successor, his
avowed aim being to support the will of the majority. The
indictments against the political defendants were quashed,
and Robinson was set at liberty ; and as a means of arriving
at a satisfactory settlement, Walker advised the free state
men to abandon the Topeka principles and submit their cause
to the polls under the legally established regime. Not with-
out misgivings, this was agreed to ; and the result showed a
large preponderance of free state votes. But the pro-slavery
men were not going to yield so easily ; and under the lead of
a political scoundrel named Calhoun — no relation of the great
statesman — the plan was evolved of foisting a slave consti-
tution upon the country without submitting it to the people ;
thereby annulling the value of the late vote for freedom.
Not all of the legislature would agree to this, however ; and
a compromise finally was made by which the question should
be submitted to the people whether they would have the con-
stitution with slavery or without slavery : leaving all the rest
of the articles of the constitution to be accepted in any event :
— and they were so framed as practically to make slavery in-
evitable. Walker protested against this swindle, and went
to Washington to remonstrate; but Buchanan informed him
that the government would support Calhoun. When the
voting day came, the free state men declined to go to the
polls, and the pro-slavery party won by a ten to one vote.
But when it came to electing state officers under this consti-

912 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

tution, the free state supporters came out, and reversed the
verdict; and the final result of the whole Kansas struggle
was, that the pro-slavery men were utterly defeated, though
the result of the trial was kept as long as possible from being
made known, and the admission of Kansas as a free state
was postponed until there should be a census of 93,000 in-
habitants. Meanwhile Walker had resigned.

The Dred Scott decision and the Kansas muddle had
created much indignation and uneasiness in the North; but
during the autumn and winter of 1857 there was another
period of financial and business disaster, due to too reckless
borrowing of money on all sides, relying on an impossible
standard of prosperity to make money good. Banks again
suspended payment, towns went bankrupt, there were wide-
spread mercantile failures, and all looked pinched and gloomy.
In this state of things, the people were disinclined to go to
dangerous lengths in politics, and the election showed no
very decided condemnation of the administration. But upon
the whole, the Democrats appeared to be losing their cohe-
sion, while in Congress there was a compact minority in op-
position. Buchanan however was imprudent enough to urge
the admission of Kansas as a slave territory, in defiance
of the patent preferences of its inhabitants; and at this
juncture Douglas himself, who was responsible for the
whole Kansas imbroglio, came out with an unexpected pro-
test against the conduct of the administration. Whether or
not his new attitude was sincere may be questioned ; it had
the appearance of being a courageous act, alienating many
Southern adherents ; and it was undoubtedly a step in the
direction of justice. But Douglas was far from lacking in
political insight, and one is disposed to ask whether he might
not have thought this a good way of bringing himself again
into prominence, and conciliating Northern support. But,
again, it may have been a genuine impulse, which he turm d
to political advantage. He was an ingrained demagogue,
and loved conspicuousness, and the clamor of audiences;

JOHN BROWN 913

and later on he showed symptoms of wishing to hedge
somewhat on his valiant attitude; but the secret heart of
a politician is an obscure place to grope in, nor does what
one finds there often reward the pain of search. The House
voted for an investigation of the Kansas proceedings; but
Orr, the Speaker of the House, by appointing a committee
of pro-slavery men, succeeded in stifling the matter. There
were prolonged and disorderly debates, in which drunken
members from Southern states called Northerners bad
names, and denounced Northerners in general as the
" mudsills of society." This had no special bearing on
the merits of the topic under discussion; but Jefferson
Davis spoke to the point when he recommended keeping
United States troops in Kansas, to keep down "disorder."
He had perceived, before the end of Pierce's administration,
as Secretary of War, that war was likely to occur in these
States, and had conducted the affairs under his supervision
with an eye to preparing the South for that contingency.
Kansas did not monopolize the disorders of the country;
far away on the further side of the Continent the new com-
munity of Utah came into collision with the government.
Brigham Young had been the governor chosen by the peo-
ple, and accepted under the Pierce administration; and he
was not only the temporal ruler of the people, but their relig-
ious head as well. Buchanan, not appreciating this peculi-
arity, thought to supplant him by an appointee of his own ;
and sent out a gentleman of good character named Cum-
ming ; and apprehending that in so remote a wilderness con-
tingencies might arise, he caused a detachment of regulars
to accompany him. His only mistake was in not having
sent regulars enough ; Young and his Mormons defied him
and the minions of oppression, and managed so to interrupt
their supplies that the situation became awkward. The
Mormons, indeed, in spite of their many saints, were capa-
ble of great fierceness ; and terrible tales were told of the
exploits of their sect of thugs known as Danites, who made
U.S.— 39 Vol. III.

914 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

away with the unfaithful. Buchanan was equal to this
emergency, however, inasmuch as politics were not con-
cerned in it; and he sent out more troops, until the Mor-
mons succumbed. But whatever might be their external
aspect as to allegiance to the United States, their true head
would always be Brigham Young, so long as life remained
in his stalwart and defiant body.

As time went on, the administration lost more and more
its hold upon the country. For the first time in twenty
years Pennsylvania ceased to support the South. A contest
which aroused general interest was that between Douglas
and Lincoln in Illinois. They were both of them picturesque
men on the stump, though of very opposite styles, principles,
and appearance : Lincoln being six feet four inches in height,
and of comparatively rustic bearing, and homely speech;
while Douglas was a manikin in height, though big enough
in brain and energy. Lincoln was a humorous, but straight-
forward and logical reasoner ; Douglas had all the tricks of
the demagogue, and a great gift of becoming hail-fellow-well-
met with "the boys. ' ' His principles were of the laisser aller
order as regarded slavery ; he professed to care nothing about
it one way or the other on sentimental or moral grounds ; he
would have it let alone where it was, but would not advocate
its being violently forced upon a free majority; let it expand
toward Mexico and Cuba, if it would. Lincoln finally cor-
nered him with a question growing from the Dred Scott de-
cision : What had he to say about the right to hold slaves in
a territory by virtue of the federal compact? Douglas replied
that without prejudice to the Supreme Court view, if a peo-
ple or a territory wished to exclude slavery from it, they
would always be able to do so. Unfriendly legislation by
the local legislature could settle it. This answered Douglas's
immediate purpose of carrying his Illinois audiences; but
Lincoln, in eliciting the statement from him, had had in view
the far more important contest of 1860; for Douglas, by his
answer, had definitely alienated Southern support for his

JOHN BROWN 915

Presidential aspirations. The South would demand perfect
explicitness in the support of slavery, in their candidate.
Although, therefore, Lincoln lost the immediate prize of the
senatorship, he prepared the way for defeating Douglas for
the Presidency. But he, also, had uttered a sentiment which
was remembered against him by the South — " A house divided
against itself cannot stand : I believe this government cannot
endure permanently half slave and half free. ... It will
become all one thing or all the other." The idea here ex-
pressed was the same as that of Seward: "the irrepressible
conflict." These two men were already the most eminent
in the Republican party; Seward had the best chance of be-
ing chosen the standard-bearer ; but the bridge is not crossed
until one comes to it.

The manifest defeat of Buchanan's effort to win Kansas
for the South prompted him to seek compensation for them
elsewhere ; and in his message at the opening of the year
1859 he recommended expansion in Mexico and the South
American countries. There were always disturbances there
sufficient to form a pretext for military interference, if the
United States were set upon it ; but his suggestions were not
taken up. Cuba could not be got by purchase, and there
was no likelihood that the Cubans would co-operate in an
attempt to shake off Spain. Moreover, England and France
were opposed to our annexing any more territory, and took
such measures to prevent it as might be effective without
being too obvious. But England was led into the mistake
of rousing our susceptibilities as to the right of search, which
they were always claiming, in season and out, and which
they now sought to practice on the plea of checking the vio-
lation of the slave trade law. The government at once sent
an American fleet to the scene, and the English made ex-
planations ; but it was a pity that the only occasion on which
Buchanan had an opportunity to show spirit in foreign policy
ehould have been in a cause so discreditable as this. Beg-
gars cannot be choosers.

9i6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The previous year had not gone by without further ad-
vance in the line of scientific improvement ; an Atlantic cable
was laid, and messages exchanged ; but the cable soon broke,
and was not permanently re-established till after the war.
More important, for the moment, was the discovery of coal
oil in Pennsylvania, by which great fortunes were made in
record time, and a beautiful region was, incidentally, trans-
formed into a lurid wilderness. Horse railroads were run-
ning in most of the great eastern towns ; Arctic exploration
continued; rowing regattas were held between Yale and
Harvard ; Heenan and Morrisey fought in the prize-ring, and
Thackeray, greatest of English novelists, read his lectures
on the Four Georges to the descendants of those who had
thrown off their yoke and forgotten it. Music and the drama
were developed, and literature had now achieved an impor-
tance which compelled recognition outside of this country.
It was a larger and richer life, though much of it assumed
trifling and frivolous forms. The people wished to be in-
structed in the lore of the world, and the lyceum bureaus
brought information to them through the mouths of eminent
lecturers. But most of this quasi-intellectual activity was at
the North; the South, like the English aristocracy, affected
to look down upon such things with good-natured scorn.
They stuck to politics as the proper pursuit for gentlemen.
Three eminent Southerners, Rhett, Davis and Alexander
Stephens, made speeches advocating the enactment by Con-
gress of a slave code directly protective of the institution ;
and also demanding that the slave trade be permitted to
such states as chose to practice it. They continued to seek
southern enlargement of boundaries, and founded the order
of the Knights of the Golden Circle to that end, of which
Walker, in his final and fatal expedition, was one of the
most distinguished members. But these movements and
propositions did not attract general attention; and it was
not until October, 1859, that an event occurred which at
once aroused the most intense feelings both North and

JOHN BROWN 917

South, and the echoes of which lasted through the war,
and after it.

In the year 1800 there was born at the little town of Tor-
rington, Connecticut, of a family which claimed Pi] grim
origin, a child named John Brown. When he was six years
old, his family removed to Ohio, where the boy learned the
tanner's and currier's trade ; and when he was a man grown,
he became a wool merchant. But misfortune pursued him
in all his efforts to make a living; while on the other hand
he bred a family of patriarchal dimensions. But he was an
earnest though narrow thinker, and one who wished to carry
his thought into act ; he had been deeply impressed by the
anti-slavery lucubrations of Garrison's "Liberator," and
emigrating to Kansas in 1855, he became active against the
pro-slavery part of the community. Sorrow, disappointment
and hardship, as well as the old Pilgrim strain in his blood,
had made him a fanatic ; and the good and bad qualities of
the type were strongly accented in him. In his conflicts
with the slaveholders he was helped by his sons, and saw
more than one of them die ; on his part, he slew without
compunction, and would drag inoffensive persons out of their
beds and kill them, for no other crime than holding opinions
which he deemed damnable. At Ossawatomie he defeated
with a small band a greatly superior force of Missouri in-
vaders ; and the exploits of this action gained him the title
of Ossawatomie Brown, by which he was afterward known.
He was a very formidable personage, inconvenient to those
who were in general sympathy with his anti-slavery ideas,
as well as terrible to his avowed enemies. He was prepared
for anything; and the arts of diplomacy were beneath his
contempt. Perhaps he was at this time hardly in his right
mind; there was abundant reason why he should not have
been. Death by violence had struck down those nearest to
him, and long brooding over the wrongs of the slave had
made him implacable to those whom he held responsible for
them. He was a tall, shaggy, impressive figure; a great

9i8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

heap of disordered hair piled up on his tall, narrow head;
a long tangled beard, and a bony, athletic frame. His eyes
gazed out sternly from beneath his rugged brows, and his
manner was grave and harsh. But there was in him in-
domitable courage, and the iron fiber of the old Covenanters.
His almost savage manhood, however, was not destitute of
its tender side, which was noted and marked by his intimates
and biographers; but it may be said of him, as of others,
that nothing in old John Brown's troubled life so well
became him as did the closing scenes of it.

In 1858 he had already conceived his grotesque plan of
emancipating the blacks single-handed, and by force. It is
needless to say that he despised politics and politicians. He
had seen slavery talked against for many years, and it was
now more strongly established than ever. He understood
that the moral reprobation with which the North professed
to regard slavery was not strong enough to induce them to
lift a hand to crush it; they would prate of the Union and
the Constitution, and let "I dare not" wait upon "I would. "
But John was withheld by no constitutional scruples ; he had
seen those he loved die, and he had slain men in cold blood
with his own hand ; and he pictured to himself the slaves
rising at his call, and massacring their masters wholesale,
while he himself led them to the slaughter and gloried in it.
The slaves, he imagined, were ready to spring up like tigers
at the signal, and he would be at the head of a million
fighters who, should the United States government side with
the South against them, would fight the government too, and
conquer them, with the aid of the white abolitionists who
would also join him ; and a new republic would be established
on the ashes of the present one, in which whites and blacks
would be equal, man for man, and before the law. In plan-
ning thus, Brown must have imagined that all negroes and
all other white abolitionists were monomaniacs like himself,
who would hold their lives at a pin's fee, and fight to the
death. And if one can picture an army of John Browns, it

JOHN BROWN 919

is not difficult to surmise that all the resources of the mighty
States might have been insufficient to put it down. Fanatics
— monomaniacs — men who will literally die rather than yield
— are more formidable than many times their number of
ordinary brave soldiers, no matter how well disciplined and
armed. Ordinary human courage has its well-defined limits ;
and after ten men have been killed out of a hundred, the
ninety will generally retreat; if twenty have been killed,
the retreat becomes a flight. But what should be done with
a hundred men who would fight till ninety of them were
slain, and then still fight till not one was left alive? With
a million men of this stamp, it was not unreasonable to
believe that Brown might have conquered any army or
armies in the world; and were he to lose half his million,
or nine-tenths of it, or all of it, that would make no differ-
ence to him ; he would have put an end to slavery.

The error Brown made, then, was not in theory, wild and
almost incredible though that was, but in the belief that his
army, if he could raise it, would resemble him. There hap-
pened not to be a million John Browns available in the
United States ; indeed, so far as we know, there never was
or would be but one. But even that one was enough to
shake the whole nation to its center; and had he not lived
and died, it is possible that slaves would still be slaves to-day.
In this world, no power equal to the one man power has yet
been found.

Brown was a practical man in ordinary respects, and he
could reason out the details of his plan logically. The slaves
must have arms. It would not be possible to arm them all
at once; but that was not necessary; if he could put guns
in the hands of a few thousand of them, that would do for
a beginning ; when the army got to its work, it could obtain
arms from its enemies. There was an arsenal at Harper's
Ferry, a small village on the Virginia side of the Potomac,
at the point where the river breaks asunder the barriers of
the Alleghanies. There was a little Virginia farmhouse near

920 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the village, which Brown rented, ostensibly for farming pur-
poses ; but little work was done upon it ; only his farm wagon
made frequent visits to the railway station, and returned
loaded with heavy cases, which might have contained books,
or farming tools, but which really were full of rifles. With
the aid of these rifles, in the hands of himself, his sons, and
a few more, he meant to capture the arsenal ; and the rest
would be easy. Messengers should go forth to notify the
slaves of the rendezvous ; as fast as they came in they would
receive the weapons : and then woe to the slaveholders ! It
was such a vision as might have risen before the mind of an
opium eater, or perhaps of a dime novelist; but only John
Brown would have attempted actually to take it out of the
region of insane notions, and clothe it with flesh and blood.

Brown's recruits came in slowly; and by the time a dozen
or more had arrived, the old man felt that he must strike.
With his sons, his army numbered eighteen all told. But
that, in one sense, was already more than enough ; for the
neighbors, though Brown had avoided all association with
them as much as possible — and he was not a man easy to
approach at any time — were beginning to show curiosity as
to why eighteen farmers who never did any farming were
living in a small cottage out there in the wilds of the hills.
They must show what they were there for before they were
asked, or it would be too late.

Therefore, on the evening of Sunday, October 16, 1859,
John Brown took his gun and ordered his men to fall in.
Down to the village by the river they tramped, the eighteen
men who were to put an end to slavery. On the way they
met a negro, one of the race they were going to save; and
Brown bade him fall in, and enjoy the distinction of being
the first recruit of his color in the emancipating army. The
negro was no doubt a fool ; but he may have had brains
enough to make a rapid calculation of the odds between this
army and the power of the United States ; and he decided,
on the instant, that the right thing for him to do was to run

JOHN BROWN 921

away. But here he showed his folly ; he had not calculated
on John Brown. The negro was a slave, and Brown was
ready to die for him ; but meanwhile he shot him down to
prevent him from hindering his emancipation. It was the
first blood shed in this war ; and it indicated that Brown
was determined to rescue the victims of slavery even if, in
order to do it, he was obliged to kill not only their tyrants,
but themselves. He was what the English would call
"thorough."

Sunday evening villagers, who have never seen a shot
fired in anger, are not likely to put up much of a fight on
so brief warning ; and Brown and his army succeeded in get-
ting into the arsenal without loss, except of the one recusant
recruit above-mentioned, who was free, indeed, however
abruptly. He was the only slave whom Brown succeeded
in freeing with his own hands.

But the first step in the great campaign was a success ;
and Brown fortified himself in his narrow quarters, and was
ready for a siege ; meanwhile he posted guards on the rail-
way bridge, and, not to be unprovided with all supplies which
an army should have, he captured a couple of prisoners.
When the train came along, he stopped it; but presently
allowed it to continue on its way to the North, possibly
imagining that it would come back filled with armed aboli-
tionists. No other evidence is needed to prove that he had
no conception whatever of the position he occupied in the
eyes of the entire law-abiding population of the United
States. The North was just as anxious to put a stop to him
as the South was ; even Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison
did not start for Harper's Ferry. The inhabitants of that
village, in addition to keeping up a desultory firing on the
arsenal, had dispatched telegrams up and down the line,
whose tenor indicated that a vast slave rebellion had broken
out, and that everybody was going to be massacred out of
hand; and by morning of the 17th of October, soldiers were
on their way to the seat of war, not knowing how many

922 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

hundred thousand desperate revolutionists they would have
to encounter. The mayor of Harper's Ferry, and a few
other citizens, had been killed or wounded by the fire from
the arsenal before the soldiers arrived. It was not until
after dark that night that a soldier who had seen war, Col-
onel Robert E. Lee, with a detachment of marines, appeared
on the scene, and upon learning that the entire revolution,
so far as was yet known, was cooped up in that little arsenal,
felt like the leader of a fire-brigade which rushes to extin-
guish the conflagration of a city, and finds only a burning
match-box. Artillery was not needed, he thought, to reduce
this fortification ; a scaling ladder applied as a battering-ram
would suffice. It was desirable to take this army prisoners;
and besides, there were citizens of Harper's Ferry inside
there, whose lives must not be endangered. So the marines,
under his directions, advanced with the heavy ladder, and
pounded in the door; and there knelt John Brown, a ghastly
spectacle, with six or seven wounds on his body, two of his
sons dead on the floor beside him, and eight other men beside
them. The war of emancipation was at an end; now were
to follow the consequences.

Brown and the other prisoners were jailed, and they were
tried and hanged with inspiring promptness. One can im-
agine what a red-handed ogre of iniquity Brown must have
appeared to the South. But in fact, the letting of blood,
and the refusal of a single slave to join his banner, had
cleared the brain of the old man, and he realized his mistake.
Possibly, too, he realized that his defeat and death would
win for his cause more than he himself could have hoped
to gain. He did not assume the airs of a martyr ; sensa-
tional to the last degree though his exploit was, he was not
in the least capable of conscious scenic display. He sat, with
his wounds, amid his enemies, quiet and unrepining, ready
for the end, reasonable and gentle enough, but if he had any
regrets, they were not that he had wished and tried to free
the slaves, but that he had lacked the means to do it. He

JOHN BROWN 923

loved the negroes with the strange, impersonal love of the
fanatic; and the little negro pickannhry that he kissed on his
way to the scaffold was to him a symbol of the race — no
more. He maintained his rude dignity and stoic courage
to the end ; and the authorities, as they choked the life out
of him, doubtless wished, like Othello, that the wretch had
twenty thousand lives : one was too poor, too weak for their
revenge. But it turned out, later, that the execution of a
single John Brown was quite as much as this nation could
afford. His body mouldered in its grave, but his soul, mili-
tant still, marched from battlefield to battlefield, and wit-
nessed the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of human lives,
poured out to defend or to defeat the cause for the sake of
which he had put his head in the halter. The excuse of the
Civil War was indeed secession ; but its reason was slavery.
And after all had been said as to Brown's insanity, and folly,
and treason, and unconstitutionality, and bloodthirstiness,
and wickedness, our people saw only the figure of a man
who had laid down his life for an idea, and a noble and
unselfish one. It was a revelation, for it was not a tendency,
nor a purpose, but an accomplished fact. A man had been
found, not to talk about this thing, but to actually do it.
And he was not a pale priest or a metaphysical ascetic, but
a plain ordinary American such as you may meet in the
village grocery on Saturday afternoons. He had done and
suffered terrible things, but so may any plain American with
strong thoughts in his mind, and little education ; and with
a heart that could be both fierce and tender. The North
understood him, felt with him, pitied him and gloried in
him; and his name and story were better known to this
nation than those of any other man of that age. There was
nothing factitious in the feeling he aroused ; it grew slowly,
but it gathered strength surely; and the final verdict of
history, now that passion is no more, is kinder and more
respectful than ever to Old Brown.

The South was in a tremor for some time after this epi-

924 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

sode, for it seemed incredible that Brown had not been the
cat's-paw of some gigantic conspiracy in the North, which
would be revealed later. But when investigation showed
that he had been utterly alone in his enterprise, he was
called a murderous madman, and everybody felt relieved;
but all the same, measures were taken by the South to get
in a defensive position. If one such madman could come
from the North, there might be others. In Congress, defi-
ances were exchanged between Democrats and Republicans.
There were a good many outspoken remarks on slavery, pro
and con, which would not have been uttered before John
Brown died. The North, of course, would not in any way
justify his deed ; but it felt less inclined than before to main-
tain a conciliating attitude toward the South. Brown had
not been conciliating: why should they?

In June of this year, Buchanan vetoed the Homestead
bill, on the ground that Congress had no power to give
away the public domain; but the true reason was lest the
lands should pass into the hands of free labor; for Southern-
ers were not able to take advantage of such a law for them-
selves. Soon after Covode of Pennsylvania carried a motion
to investigate the acts of the administration ; and in spite of
the President's protests, the inquisitors unearthed a large
mass of testimony indicative of corruption, favoritism,
bribery, violence and treachery; for, indeed, it was noto-
rious that every kind of political iniquity had flourished
under his rule. The committee made no attempt to im-
peach Buchanan; they were satisfied to let the matter rest
with the exposure; and Buchanan could only say that if
wrong had been done, it was inadvertently, in the dispatch
of routine business. The inquisition was certainly partisan;
it was of no benefit to the country, however much it may
have hurt Buchanan; and its chief use was to show, what
had been already suspected, that Congress is a place where
a great deal of evil may be done. By way of diverting at-
tention, the President tried once more to intrigue the coun-

JOHN BROWN 925

try with Mexico, with a view to further annexation; and
there were rich jobs afoot in relation to transit routes across
the Isthmus ; but no change of policy could be effected. The
country was becoming too much absorbed in its own affairs
to take interest in anything else.

The Democratic Convention met at Charleston in the
spring of 1860. The platform committee reported that Con-
gress and territorial legislatures had no right to prevent the
holding of slaves in any territory ; the Douglas men could
not accept this except on condition that the Supreme Court
first pass upon it ; the Convention adopted the Douglas side
of the argument, and the other delegates thereupon with-
drew. They met in a convention of their own, and nomi-
nated Breckinridge for President. Douglas was nominated
by the others a month later, with Fitzpatrick of Alabama
for Vice-President. In Baltimore assembled a sort of re-
spectable coalition convention, which named Bell and Ever-
ett for their candidates, on the platform of "no political
principle other than the Constitution of the country, the
Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws." The
Republican Convention met in Chicago, which thus first
takes its place in national political history; it already had
the indomitable spirit of which we see some of the results to-
day. There was danger of the Republicans, in their search
for a candidate, going astray among the cranks and hypo-
crites of whom their ranks afforded many specimens; but
Seward, Chase and Lincoln were finally brought to the front
as the best men from whom to select a winner. Seward's
long and clear record of ability and service entitled him to
first consideration ; but along with many friends he had made
many enemies, not all of them outside of his own party ; and
it was necessary to pick a man who would win. Abraham
Lincoln had many friends, and he had kept out of public life
to a degree that left him to a great extent unhampered. His
speeches during his contest with Douglas two years before
were remembered favorably; and things seemed to be com-

926 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

ing his way. Chase was also strong, but was thought not
to have so good a chance. Other candidates were Bates and
Cameron.

The hall in which this Convention met had been made
for them, and was gayly decorated ; there was space for an
enormous audience in addition to the Convention members
themselves; and the most lively interest was shown. Sew-
ard led in the first ballot ; but Lincoln, greeted with a great
shouting, was second. The next ballot gave Lincoln all
Cameron's votes, and brought him within three of Seward,
amid great excitement; then Ohio and Massachusetts fell
into line, and gave him a majority; still other states fol-
lowed these, until, with a whirlwind of commotion, and the
thundering of cannon, Lincoln was made the Republican
nominee by 354 votes out of 466. The result was un-
doubtedly a popular one; but of course no one knew of
what vital importance it really was. The election was not
to be the triumph of orators or famous names, but of fun-
damental principles; and as a matter of fact it was to the
exposition of these that the candidates devoted themselves.
Morality was the watchword of the Republicans; they had
tried the effect of compromising with wrong, and had been
defeated. Concession was the cry of the Democrats, whose
split put them at a disadvantage. All except Breckinridge
were for the Constitution ; and he was also, with the proviso
that the equality of states be maintained. Lincoln, who
kept quiet and made a good impression on all who saw him,
gained strength and influence daily ; Seward generously took
the stump for him, and Cameron brought Pennsylvania to
his support. Carl Schurz, who had lately become a citizen,
harangued the Germans with good results, and Henry Ward
Beecher and George William Curtis lent their aid ; but Wen-
dell Phillips seemed to scent some suspicion of negro slavery
in Lincoln's garments, and with his usual patriotism and
sagacity denounced him as "the slave-hound of Illinois. "
On the popular and demonstrative side, this campaign some-

JOHN BROWN 927

what recalled that of " Tippecanoe"; there were vast meet-
ings and torchlight processions and emblematic standards;
and Lincoln having once earned a living splitting rails, rails
were prominent among the insignia ; and the shout of thou-
sands of lusty lungs in unison — * 'Abraham— Lincoln— Eail —
SplittAR!"— will never be forgotten by those who heard it.
He was a John Brown with all Brown's virtues and none of
his faults; a man of the people, a great man, and a good
man. And he was indefinitely more than John Brown could
ever have been; the depth of his mind, the breadth of his
sjmipathies, have never been sounded or measured. His
humor was a national treasure, and all the simple and
manly facts of his early life, as they became known, en-
deared him more and more to his countrymen. His stature
has only within these last few years been appreciated by the
generality; but wherever an American goes in this world,
he will find no better passport to take with him than that of
being Lincoln's fellow-countryman. The love and reverence
with which his name is regarded in many out-of-the-way
corners of the old world would be hardly credited by those
who have not witnessed it. Goodness, and faithful labor for
others, go far, and the memory of them dieth not.

Buchanan gave his support to Breckinridge, though he
announced that Democrats might take their choice of either
him or Douglas, no regular nomination having been made.
Douglas, though he was left to fight for his own hand, was
the more formidable candidate of the two. He took the
stump in his own behalf, and no man could have done it
more effectively. Breckinridge was the disunion candidate,
though he would not admit it; and the force of sentiment
behind him was as strong at least as that behind Lincoln ;
but it lacked numbers. The South were fighting for their
reputation, and for their existence as members of the old
Union ; for it would be a mistake to think that the majority
of Southerners at this time wished to secede. They only
thought that if their principles suffered defeat at the polls,

928 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

not only would they be discredited before the world, but
they would be obliged to set up housekeeping by themselves
thereafter. If some of them anticipated war, they fancied
it would be short — a mere matter of form. But the preva-
lent idea was that the secession would be accomplished
peaceably, as Calhoun had dreamed long ago.

The October elections favored the Republicans, and
showed which way the popular verdict would fall. The
polls for the Presidential election closed just after sunset
on the 6th of November, and by midnight it was known that
Lincoln was President of the United States. Breckinridge
got the vote of eleven out of the fifteen slave states ; Doug-
las did better with the popular than with the electoral votes;
Bell carried Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. There was
to be no more slave domination in the Union. Even the
prospects of expanding in other directions than northward
were dispelled. It seemed to the South that they had stood
by the Constitution, while the North had played fast and
loose with it in order to win. But the result at the polls
was undeniable ; there was no question of fraud ; and it was
the duty of the South to accept the result. Instead of that,
the threats of secession began to be heard immediately ; and
South Carolina took the lead. A convention was summoned
on the 17th of December, two weeks after the meeting of
Congress, and on the 20th passed an ordinance of secession.
Among their grievances they named abolitionism at the
North, abuse of slavery as sinful, the passage of the acts
to prevent the recapture of fugitive slaves, and Lincoln's
declaration that the house divided against itself could not
stand. The North, they affirmed, taxed the South for its
own benefit. But if the slaveholding states would stand
together, their cotton and tobacco would make all the world
court them, and their territory, larger than Europe, would
become the richest and happiest in the world. The other
states showed themselves well disposed to follow their san-
guine sister.

JOHN BROWN 929

Three commissioners were now sent to "Wasshington to
arrange for the division of public property in South Carolina,
and for the surrender of the Charleston forts. All the South-
ern States, of course, had within their boundaries a great
deal of government property, paid for by Northern as well as
Southern taxpayers, and to this property they had no more
right than they had to the Tower of London or the Porcelain
Pagoda in China. At this time there were in Charleston
Harbor three forts— Castle Pinckney, Fort Moultrie and Fort
Sumter ; Moultrie was occupied by a garrison of sixty men —
more than ten times too small for it; Sumter was not in
fighting order; but it was more defensible, being on an
island in the center of the harbor, and to it Major Anderson
moved his men on the night of the 26th of December, after
the adjournment of the Convention, and the announcement
of secession. Anderson was a faithful officer, and saw that
it might be necessary to stand on his defense. The next
morning there was great to-do in Charleston; and acting
upon the principle that might makes right, the local authori-
ties baldly appropriated Pinckney and Moultrie and hoisted
over them the Palmetto flag of the state. Anderson had
taken the precaution to spike Moultrie's guns before leav-
ing ; but the arsenal was taken a few days later, with half
a million dollars' worth of national arms in it. This picking
of the national pocket by the seceding states was an awk-
ward accompaniment of secession ; but there seemed no way
of avoiding it. It would have been more dignified had it
been preceded by a definite act of war. It is amusing to
note that, with the breathless American haste to be up with
the events which they themselves were creating, the South
Carolinian newspapers headed their dispatches from the
Northern states, ''Foreign News." The three commission-
ers carried out the game ; they demanded to be recognized
as representatives of an independent country; while poor
Buchanan was still master of the White House, and for
aught any one could say, the President-elect might never

930 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

live to hold the reins. They ordered Buchanan — for the tone
they took was that of masters rather than of ambassadors
— much less of traitors who merited hanging — to move An-
derson out of Fort Sumter at once, otherwise their outraged
country would put him out by force of arms (stolen from
the United States for that purpose). Buchanan deserves no
sympathy for this insult; for he had unfaithfully refused
to adopt Winfield Scott's advice, given long before, to put
these forts in a proper posture of defense, in view of pre-
cisely the contingency which had now happened. All he
could do now was to submit the correspondence to Con-
gress. His Cabinet was by this time dissolving; he ac-
cepted Howell Cobb's resignation as Secretary of the Treas-
ury, though it was known that his conduct of the office had
been grossly imprudent if not much worse; the molluscous
Cass next left him ; and Floyd, Secretary of War, who had
taken advantage of his position to prevent the re-enforce-
ment of Southern forts, followed. The President took it all
very meekly. The country gained by his appointment of an
unknown lawyer of Ohio, Edwin M. Stanton, as Attorney-
general. Stanton was destined to see Secession out as War
Secretary under Lincoln; and proved himself to be the
right man in the right place. An order to send the cruiser
''Brooklyn" with re-enforcements to Anderson was delayed;
and finally the "Star of the West," with two hundred and
fifty men, but no armament, was dispatched; upon her ar-
rival at the harbor, she was fired on by the Charleston bat-
teries, January 9th, 1861, and she immediately put about
and returned. Two other members of the Cabinet, Thomas
and Thompson, both disloyal, and dishonest into the bargain,
now resigned; and again the nation profited; for John A.
Dix was called to Thomas's place (Secretary of the Treas-
ury), and it was he who soon after ordered his officers, "If
any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot
him on the spot." During the few remaining weeks of
Buchanan's term, a sort of armistice with the South was

JOHN BROWN 931

agreed upon, according to which the forts were to remain
without re-enforcements, and were not to be captured by the
South.

Meanwhile delegates from six seceding states met at
Montgomery, Alabama, and made a constitution for the pro-
visional government of the Confederate States of America.
It made slavery its piece de resistance; and matters relating
to public property and debts were to be adjusted between
them and the United States on just and equitable terms.
The proposal was for peaceable secession. Jefferson Davis
was elected President of this new Confederacy, though no
appeal had been made to the people, even in choosing the
delegates that elected him. The government was an oli-
garchy. Alexander Stephens was made Vice-President ; his
views were more conservative and moderate than those of
the others, and he was willing to accommodate the quarrel
even yet, if the North would repeal its "personal liberty"
bills, preventing return of fugitive slaves. He was of opinion
that the best men at the North would always be ready to
agree with the South as to national measures ; and remarked,
not without truth, that "the South has controlled the gov-
ernment in its every important action from the beginning."
Nor did he consider that Lincoln's election was fair cause
for secession. Lincoln wrote to him under date of December
22, 1860, that the Republican administration would not inter-
fere with slaves ; but that the point of divergence was that
"you think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while
we think it is wrong, and ought to be abolished. " Stephens's
response to this was that the pride of the South was touched
at being made the object of moral diatribes. This seems
childish, but after all, it is pride of this kind that influences
men and nations more strongly than almost any other cause,
and has led to more wars than any other. It was pride that
made England fight the war of the Revolution, and pride
that prompted Mexico to undertake the struggle that lost her
California and Texas. Such pride is costly ; but it is worth

932 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

its cost; since without it a nation is neither respected nor
respects itself.

At the same time that the Confederacy between the six
states (South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Flor-
ida, and Mississippi) was formed, a peace convention met in
"Washington, at the instance of Virginia. The scheme was
got up by John Tyler, the ex-president, and the meeting
contained representatives of twenty states, North and South,
the North being in the majority. It seems probable that
Tyler had treasonable designs in this affair ; he asked for a
truce while it was deliberating, and thus kept the North
from making needful preparations; and when the sittings
had issued in no result, he returned to Richmond and de-
clared that the Union could not be saved and that the sooner
Virginia joined the seceding states the better.

Lincoln left his home on February 11th and traveling
by Pittsburgh, Buffalo and New York, reached Washington
on the 23d, having journeyed from Philadelphia incognito,
guarded by the detective Allan Pinkerton; for it was be-
lieved that a plot was afoot in Baltimore to kidnap or kill
him while crossing the city.

At the Capital there was great anxiety and uncertainty
as to what would happen. Absurd propositions were ad-
vanced from various quarters to ward off the danger, or at
least to retain the wavering border states in the Union.
Lincoln took Seward and Chase into his Cabinet at once,
indicating that his policy would not be one of compromise.
Seward had made a conciliating speech some six weeks be-
fore, in which he urged fidelity to the Union, but added,
it could not be saved by compromises ; he warned the South
that secession would involve civil war ; and he opposed the
attitude of some in the North, who would let the South go
and try her experiment, and return when she had found it
unsuccessful. But in truth it was now too late for argu-
ment or reconciliation. The pulse of war had begun to beat
in the veins of the people on both sides, and they wanted no

JOHN BROWN 933

further parley. The Southern members withdrew from the
Capitol ; the bill admitting Kansas as a free state was passed,
and received the President's signature; Colorado, Nevada
and Dakota were made new free territories. Nothing now
remained but for the orderly lapse of events to get rid of the
pusillanimous and half- treasonable Buchanan, and to bring
in the new leader on whom the hopes of the nation were
fixed. The politicians were slower to believe that war was
inevitable than were the mass of the people, who trust more
to intuitions. The conflict was truly irrepressible. Upon
the whole, it was as fair a quarrel as was ever fought. Both
sides firmly believed they were in the right; and neither
doubted of victory. The South was used to war, and was
warlike ; the North were peaceful traders, and had forgotten
the art of the sword and musket which their forefathers
knew. They had forgotten ; but now they began to remem-
ber; voices seemed to call to them from the past, bidding
them do honor to their ancestry. The anger of the North
rose slowly, but it rose at last, and it burned with an increas-
ing flame until the end. The South had the splendid cour-
age of the cavaliers who fought for Charles ; and the des-
perate earnestness of men who defend their homes and their
political existence. And both South and North were Amer-
icans.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD

BULL RUN

N respect of numbers engaged and losses suf-
fered, the war which was now about to begin
was the greatest ever fought. It also seemed
to be the most deplorable ; for it was a war of
like against like: of brothers against one an-
other. After nearly two and a half centuries,
the sons of the pioneers who had settled Virginia and Mas-
sachusetts, and of those who followed them, were marshaled
against each other, with deadly enmity in their hearts.
From a few score — a few hundreds — they had increased to
full thirty million of as enlightened and enterprising a people
as were in the world; and they were about to plunge into
the hideous work of mutual destruction. Together they
had resisted Europe, and their blood had mingled on a hun-
dred battlefields, where freedom was the stake; they had
together built up a great civilization, and had presented to
the world the spectacle of a vast democracy living in free-
dom, with no ruler but themselves; they had upset the pre-
dictions of failure which the wisest of the old nations had
made; and the populace of the old monarchies and despot-
isms had heard of their liberty, and millions of them had
crossed the ocean to share it. Already America was the
hope of mankind. And yet, at the height of their seeming
success, they had quarreled with themselves — these sons of
the new day — and were gathering their mighty energies to
annihilate the work which their great fathers had made. It
(934)

BULL RUN 935

was a grievous sight to see, and an ominous failure to con-
fess ; for if America failed, there was no rational hope that
the cause of civil and religious freedom could ever succeed.
Never again could the experiment be tried under conditions
so favorable; and even could another continent be found,
and another people with the spirit of the Puritans and Pil-
grims to colonize it, the precedent of the American collapse
would discourage and handicap them. We had believed
that God led us to the Wilderness, and had protected us
there. But if, after all, we were to go down in ruin, under-
mined by our own hands, would it not be a sign that God
had no part in our attempt? Except the Lord build the
city, they labor in vain who build it. It had all been a vast
mistake and delusion from the beginning. Let us call back
our kings and czars, and surrender our liberty and equality.
Man is not able to govern himself. Let Moses lead the
Israelites back to Pharaoh, and cast the tablets of the
Divine Law into the depths of the Red Sea. The Pillar
of Cloud by day, of Fire by night, was but a mirage and
a mockery; and a few selfish tyrants shall have dominion
over many helpless slaves.

But the conflict was irrepressible. During forty years
every means of composing it had been tried, and had mis-
carried. The Frankenstein monster of slavery which had
been forced by alien and then by geographical agency upon
the South, was a growing monster, and must be fed and
given room to stretch his shackled but formidable limbs.
Above all must he be left undisturbed where he was, or his
sinister force, which now was given to giving his masters
wealth, would be turned against their throats. The South-
ern slaveholder could never feel fully safe. Those black
figures bending and toiling in his fields were obedient only
to force, and the force was absurdly inadequate — it was the
mere intellectual domination of a superior race. But should
a Toussaint arise to tell them of their strength, and lead
them to put it forth, what would become of the planter?

936 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

What had become of the French in San Domingo? Or, fail-
ing a leader of their own color, should another John Brown,
or an army of them, appear — as from indications at the
North might well happen — the days of the South would be
numbered. Their only security, then, lay either in spread-
ing the slave system over the entire Union, so that all alike
should be concerned to maintain it : or in retiring from the
Union, so that the peril of the Abolitionists might be re-
moved. "Peaceably if we may — forcibly if we must!" said
the South, taking the words from the mouth of Josiah
Quincy of Massachusetts sixty years before. New England
had no right to protest; she herself had knotted the lash
which was now laid across her shoulders. The Boston Fed-
eralists had sown the wind, and the whirlwind was now to
be reaped. The pretext was different, but the argument
was the same.

But the North could not yield, in spite of the tu-quoque
taunt, and in spite of pusillanimous mutterings from a faint-
hearted minority, of whom Buchanan was the type: — the
Copperheads, as they came to be called. They were willing
to let the slaves stay where they were, and promise never to
meddle with them ; but they could not corrupt free labor by
suffering slave labor to compete with it on its own soil ; nor
could they allow the Southern minority to pre-empt the un-
trodden regions which yet lay to the north and west. Well,
the South would agree, so far; but what objection had the
North to letting her peaceably secede? Let the land of sta-
ple-producers separate from the land of traders and manu-
facturers. There was no real union of interests between
them; why should a forced political union be maintained?
Let each go its own road, parting with mutual good wishes,
and be happy and prosperous in its own way. There was
space and to spare on the American continent for two
mighty empires at least.

To this proposition, what should the North reply? It
seemed far more reasonable than the other. The Consti-

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

y$&

^sr**f

MAJ.-GEN. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN, U.S.A.

ADMIRAL DAVID G. FARRAGUT, U.S.N.

THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC -LIBRARY

AS^OR, LENOX AND

TIlD-N foundations.

GEN. ROBERT E. LEE, C.S.A.

BULL RUN 937

tution seemed to admit it, for though the doctrine of state
rights was denied by the North, it was supported by power-
ful reasoners, and might at least be considered open to argu-
ment. And was it not more politic to be separated from a
friendly community than to tie an unwilling one to one's
self? Moreover, so long as South and North made one
country, there would always be danger of contamination
from slavery either covert or overt ; but if they were politi-
cally foreign to each other, no such contingency would exist.
Why, then, not let the South go? Independent of us, she
could do us as much good as before, and would do us much
less harm.

There was a good deal of talk of this kind at the North
during the first months of 1861, and it sounded plausible
and prudent. Yet the weight of feeling in the North was
against it. Against policy, against profit and utility, the
decision was that the South must be compelled to remain in
the Union. Was this the result of a determination to back
one interpretation of the Constitution against another? Was
it sullen pride, or obstinacy, or stupidity? Was it fear that
a severance of the bonds of Union would weaken us to the
attacks of Europe? Was it apprehension that if the prin-
ciple of secession were once recognized, the practice would
spread, until the great American Republic became a cluster
of helpless and snarling principalities, such as already vexed
the tropical regions of the continent?

Considerations such as these may have entered into the
thoughts of the North upon the subject; but they were not
the controlling ones. The answer given was usually in the
words, "The Union must be preserved." Literally, this
would imply only a reluctance to relinquish a material
bond; but there is no doubt that it was the expression of a
spiritual conviction of a remarkable kind; a recognition of
the truth that God had placed us here to make one nation,
and that we were bound to fulfill His purpose. There were
generations of historical consciousness in that resolve; an
U.S.— 40 Vol. III.

938 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

unseen influence transmitted from father to son, becoming
incorporate with our growth, an organic part of us, not to be
rooted out. The United States was one, and one it should
forever remain. Our ancestors had not suffered from hun-
ger and Indians, from royal oppression, from insolent war,
to have the work of their blood and brains and hearts de-
stroyed by the shallow and infidel impatience of a hot-headed
and arrogant minority. These planters were not the nation,
for they were willing to destroy the nation; their attitude
was not buttressed by the august and deep-laid foundations
of history, for they cast history aside, and acted from the
selfish and immediate impulse of personal comfort and pros-
perity. "What was the true motive that actuated them? — the
maintenance of slavery! For the sake of this sin — for sin it
was, no matter what expediency might say — they would de-
stroy the edifice of ages, in which were involved the purest
hopes of mankind. It should not be permitted. The higher
law forbade it. We had a trust to guard, and we would
guard it. War was a terrible evil, and we had put it aside
as long as we could — until concession could no further go
— until honor and submission were no longer compatible.
Now, therefore, let war come, if it must; and let us rather
die to uphold a truth than live to profit by a sin. Such were
the inner sentiments contained in the words, "The Union
must be preserved!" and they constituted an irresistible
power. The North, indeed, had physical resources not pos-
d by the South; but these could not have been called
forth, nor kept in action, had not a profound spiritual con-
viction of right and duty animated them as soul animates
body. By no lesser force could the local patriotism and
fiery ardor of the South have been overcome. The South
fought for their homes, and for slavery; the North fought
for the America of the future; and it was a cause worth all
the blood and treasure it cost. But the North, too, had sins
of commission and omission to answer for; she too, in the
past, had been selfish and impatient for ends of her own;

BULL RUN 939

and the punishment which the war inflicted upon her was
not undeserved. She came out of it purified and strength-
ened, and having learned a lesson of the fruit of tampering
with evil which could never be quite forgotten ; but a full
generation must pass away, and deep wounds be healed,
before South and North could forgive each other, and enter
with sincerity into new bonds of brotherhood.

Though the ultimate strength of the South was less than
her opponent's, her immediate resources were greater, so far
as material and preparation went. Floyd, while drawing
his salary as a sworn officer of the government, had been
busily engaged in crippling in all ways the national power;
he had dispersed the army in places where the Union could
least avail itself of its services ; he had sent arms and am-
munition where the South could get hold of them, and had
left the forts which guarded the coast below Norfolk without
garrisons or supplies; and he had done this with Buchanan's
connivance, and in defiance of the repeated protests and ad-
vice of Scott. Washington, Baltimore, and places yet fur-
ther north, were full of disloyalty; and movements made
toward suppressing the rebellion were immediately tele-
graphed to southern points. So long as Buchanan re-
mained in office, the South would not be interfered with ;
and she used the opportunity to hasten her arrangements,
while the North was obliged to look on without being able
to lift her hand.

Yet the North was not wholly idle; the people were
deeply interested in the progress of affairs, and every North-
ern town had its company drilling every evening on the
common; old guns and old uniforms were routed out of
the local armories, or from private hoards, and one beheld
queer and motley assemblages marching and countermarch-
ing at the word of command, before the winter snows had
left the ground clear. The younger folk entered into this
work with a certain pleasurable excitement, the instinctive
pleasure which the idea of battle supplies; the old people

940 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

looked on gravely, and often shook their heads as they
turned away. After Lincoln had taken his oath as Presi-
dent, and his early orders had proved that he was not going
to accept the Southern acts supinely, the excitement rose,
and the clash of opinions became sharper between those who
still wished to temporize, and those who desired to go right
ahead and fight, leaving talk till after the fighting was done.
Then were repeated the painful scenes which had been en-
acted more than fourscore years before, when American
tories and patriots had taken sides against one another; men
hitherto of weight and repute in the local community sud-
denly found themselves looked at askance, or ostracized, be-
cause they expressed opinions which were out of accord with
the general feeling. There was a great deal of intolerance,
and hard names were bandied about ; as for argument, there
was little, but only plentiful contradicting one of another.
Feeling had taken the place of argument, and all breath
expended in arguing was breath wasted. North and South
were going to fight; and nothing was now worth talking
about except how to get to fighting as quickly and as effec-
tively as possible.

At ten minutes before five o'clock on the morning of
April 13, 1861, a mortar in Charleston Harbor discharged
a shell, which burst in the air above Fort Sumter, arousing
Major Robert Anderson and his threescore men to realization
of the fact that war between North and South had actually
begun, and that the South had fired the first shot. It hurt
nobody, nor did any of the many hundreds which were dis-
charged on both sides during the remainder of the day and
night, and on the following morning; Major Anderson keep-
ing his garrison behind the bomb-proofs, and letting the
guns on the parapet, which were the biggest in the fort, be
knocked off their places rather than risk lives for the sake of
firing them off. The reluctance to kill people was observable
in the early days of the war, more on the Northern than on
the Southern side. The enemies were polite and "ehival-

BULL RUN 94i

rous" to one another, and seemed desirous to convey the
idea that though they were fighting, their mutual regard
for one another was in no way impaired. But this sort of
flummery presently wore thin and disappeared ; and we came
to think no more of sacrificing a thousand men to capture a
battery, than we did of the solitary unfortunate who was
killed in Sumter, not in the battle, but by the accidental
discharge of a gun fired in salute after the surrender. It is
not that armies become more bloodthirsty as their experience
ripens; but they learn to regard killing as a mere business,
to be pursued, like any other, on business principles.

When Sumter had been pounded from the shore batteries
in the harbor for a day and a half, its fire slackened, and a
certain hasty General Wigfall unexpectedly appeared upon
the esplanade outside its gates, demanding to see Anderson
at once to arrange terms of surrender. After some parley
he was admitted, for indeed he was in acute peril of being
killed by the bombardment of his own side if he were not ;
and he offered Anderson the honors of war and permission
to go home if he would give up. Anderson was a brave and
faithful officer enough, and lived to raise again over Sumter
the flag he now pulled down ; but he was a Kentuckian and
a slaveholder, and he had not yet got accustomed to the
idea of fighting his kindred; and he knew, besides, that the
fort could not hold out much longer, and could not inflict
any loss upon the enemy if it did. So he accepted Wigfall' s
terms, and hoisted the white flag; and only discovered after-
ward that Wigfall had been acting entirely on his private
responsibility, and that the terms he had accepted were liable
to be disallowed. However, at that stage of the war, such
technicalities were not insisted on; and Anderson was al-
lowed to depart without further molestation. That night it
was known all over the Union that the war had begun in-
deed ; and every one North and South stiffened himself for
the fight. The Southerners needed no further stimulus or
signal; the North waited for the word from Washington.

942 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

What would that long-legged, humorous, peaceable-looking
Illinois President say or do? — The waiting was not long.
The proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volun-
teers appeared on Monday morning, April 15th. The re-
sponse was almost as quick as the call. Massachusetts was
in the lead ; her Sixth Regiment passed through Baltimore
on the 19th of April — a day remembered in Massachusetts,
and now to be signalized again. For Baltimore was full of
secession, which was only kept from declaring itself as in
the other Southern cities by the fact that Baltimore lay, geo-
graphically, between two fires, Philadelphia being loyal, and
Washington at least partially so. But when the mob in
Baltimore saw Northern troops passing through their city
on the avowed errand of killing their fellows in the field,
their wrath overcame all considerations of prudence, and
they first cursed and then attacked them. One of the cars
in which they were crossing the town broke down, and the
soldiers began to suffer from the missiles and revolver-prac-
tice which made them their target. One does not like to
hear of troops firing upon citizens in the streets of their own
city, and Massachusetts men had not forgotten the Boston
Massacre. But these Northern soldiers were certainly not
looking for trouble in Baltimore ; they had expected no such
reception, and were merely doing what had to be done — pass
through that fiery city on their way to Washington. Ac-
cordingly, not they but the citizens are to be blamed for the
fusillade with which they finally replied to the attack upon
them. Several of the soldiers were killed, and their bodies
left upon the streets; more were wounded; it cannot be
known what casualties happened to the Baltimore men.
But the first blood of the war, on both sides, may be said
to have been spilled here ; and the increase of mutual ani-
mosity which it caused was extraordinary. The best cam-
paign song of the war was drawn out by this episode; a local
journalist in his early twenties, of scholarly proclivities and
enthusiastic temperament, being moved to call upon "Mary-

BULL RUN 943

land, my Maryland," to avenge the patriotic gore which had
flecked the streets of Baltimore on this occasion. Maryland
did not respond to the poet's summons; and, on the other
hand, the North, failing to produce as good a song for her
side, unblushingly purloined Mr. James Ryder Randall's
production, which, with the change of a few words, was
found to serve just as well to fire the Northern as the
Southern heart. And yet, after all, the "John Brown's
body" hymn, as thundered forth by the marching myriads
of the North, was a better campaign document than its
graceful and spirited rival.

During the ensuing weeks there were many tender part-
ings of sons from parents and sweethearts ; though the terms
of enlistment were commonly short, and it was still believed
on both sides that the war would be a matter of not more
than "a hundred days" or so. If either party had foreseen
four or five years of continuous and terrific fighting, between
armies aggregating two million men, and with losses alto-
gether of near seven hundred thousand, the emotions of
those partings would have been more poignant still. But
in these first weeks there was displayed a kind of sentiment
which could only belong to the early stages of the war.
There had as yet been no gaps made in the family circles
of the nation; there were no wrongs to avenge, no suffer-
ings to requite ; the harsher aspect of the struggle had not
yet come. There was only the exaltation of fighting for one's
country, the pathos of saying good-by, the hope of glory, the
glow of facing untried dangers. The boys left their classes
in Harvard and Yale, the farmers, mechanics and artisans
left their work, the clerks laid down their bargains on the
counter, the merchant raised a company or a regiment and
put himself at its head. Gentlemen of elegant leisure found
at last the opportunity for action which they had missed all
their lives, without knowing what ailed them ; ne'er-do-weels
and black sheep started for the front with a determination to
prove that there was stuff in them after all. They all went

944 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

into camp green, ignorant, loose, awkward; the men were
independent and free-and-easy ; the officers, men of education
and refinement, unused to the exigencies of military disci-
pline, asked their rank and file (with many of whom perhaps
they had been acquainted in the walks of peace) to "please
step this way" ; "kindly present arms," and so on. But such
softness wore off before long ; and when the first three-months-
men came back to their native villages, they were hardly rec-
ognizable for the gawky citizens who had gone forth so lately;
their figures were wiry and erect, their lean faces were tanned
by the summer suns of Virginia, they walked in pairs or
threes with the long, springy, measured step of war; they
were now disciplined soldiers, who had shot and been shot
at, had faced death, had obeyed orders, had made a part of
battles. The difference was wonderful, and it never wore
away. The familiar village was not the same village any
more. Many who marched forth returned no more forever;
those who came back were changed ; there were empty places
in almost every household, as the years went by ; and the
family group round the hearth, if it were still full, never
looked the same as before ; there was another spirit, another
feeling in it. And everywhere you saw the badge of mourn-
ing; women, old and young, in black gowns, with crape
veils ; it was a sight so common that one ceased to notice it.
And the talk was all of campaigns, battles, generals, cap-
tains, regiments, charges, retreats, victories, defeats. The
war-correspondents of that day were few, but the news-
papers were absorbing reading nevertheless ; and they had
news to tell. There were the black headlines; the columns
of terse narrative ; the list of dead and wounded — but these
soon had to be given up, save for the names of leading offi-
cers ; what should a newspaper do with the losses of forty
and fifty thousand which some of the great battles brought?
Short or long, those lists of dead, wounded and missing were
as trying to the women's hearts at home as was the charge
that caused them to the soldiers who faced the guns. Yes,

BULL RUN 945

far more trying ; for the charge was made in hot blood and
fierce excitement, with glory to win and only one's own
death to face; but the lists were read at home; cold and
trembling fingers held the paper; the eyes were painfully
strained, the lips were parted, the cheeks pale ; and the heart
stood still or leaped by turns. There was no excitement to
sustain the wife or mother ; no glory to gain ; and the death,
if it came, came not to her, but to him she loved best. No
adequate history could ever be written of the women of the
Civil War; but it is strange indeed that no great sculptor or
architect has been commissioned to erect some mighty monu-
ment, to commemorate forever in enduring marble and bronze
her heroism, her sacrifices, and her achievements.

The Union army must concentrate at Washington, and
thence proceed to the defense of the line along the Potomac
and the Ohio which marked the boundary between South
and North. For the capture of Sumter had added to the
Southern array the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Ar-
kansas and Tennessee. The western, mountainous part of
Virginia was finally saved to the North, after several sharp
battles had been fought there ; Kentucky also remained loyal,
Missouri too, and the new free state of Kansas. The Con-
federacy, therefore, was bounded on the north by the old
Compromise line of 1820, and included Texas as its western
frontier. The North held all the rest; but practically, the
states involved in active war on the Northern side were less
in area than those on the South. On the other hand, the
North surpassed the South in wealth and population, and in
means of sustaining a long conflict. The City of Washing-
ton, lying as it did on the borders of Virginia, was in danger
of Southern attack, and its defense was the first problem of
the war; coupled with that, was the attack on Richmond.
The true theory of tactics for the North, however, was not
to capture Richmond, for although that was the Capital of
the Confederacy, its possession was not vital to their cause,
as that of Washington might have been to the North. And

946 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

since it would be impossible within our limits to follow this
war in detail, it seems advisable here at the outset to give
an outline of the entire contest. The story of the strategy
of modern battles, however edifying to the expert, goes in
at one ear and out of the other of the unmilitary reader ; the
latter can appreciate the description of a charge, the heroism
of a siege, the sublimity of a forlorn hope; but the details
of maneuvers in the field are more than he can digest. To
comprehend the general plan of a whole war is less difficult,
and to the student of history far more important.

The South hoped for victory on two grounds: first, be-
cause the North had no practice in war — for the trifling
operations by land of the war of 1812 were hardly worth
considering, besides that all who took part in them were
already gone to their reward; the only considerable battle
had been at New Orleans, and in that the South had borne
the chief share. The Mexican war, again, had been fought
mainly by Southern troops; and the South had ever since
been engaged, unofficially, in border raids and filibustering
expeditions, which had kept her familiar with the idea of
war, and ready to take part in any fighting that came her
way. She felt, therefore, the same sense of superiority over
the North that a boxer does over a man, bigger perhaps than
he, but uninstructed in the art of self-defense.

In the second place, the South trusted that no long time
would pass after the outbreak of hostilities before Europe
would intervene in her favor. For she supplied Europe with
cotton and tobacco, and the old world would not long submit
to be deprived of these necessities, as must happen were the
war prolonged. The rest of the earth, in short, could get
along without the aid of the northern states of the Union,
but not without the Confederacy; and when England or
France, or both, put their weight into the scale, the North
must yield, even were she not beaten already. — All this was
counting chickens before they were hatched, and, as it turned
out, had the usual fate of such optimism; but it gave the

BULL RUN 947

South a hardihood which she might else have lacked, which
plunged her into the war so deep that there was no getting
out except by the surrender which was inevitable upon her
complete exhaustion.

As for the North, she believed that she would conquer by
dint of her superior strength, wealth and lasting powers ; she
was far from estimating at its true value the resistance and
vigor of the South, or the depth of feeling which attached
her to her cause. She thought her fickle and easily discour-
aged, and she doubted not that when a few months had
proved to her the futility of struggling against a resolute
and stern adversary, she would be glad to come back, a
repentant prodigal. So large a miscalculation on the part
of both South and North goes to show how little the two
sections knew of each other ; lack of common interests had
bred ignorance. They were far better strangers now than
they were when the struggles with England came to an end.
But they were in a fair way to remedy this deficiency.

The area of the Confederacy, geographically regarded,
divides into three parts, like Csesar's Gaul; the dividing lines
being the Mississippi River, and the Alleghany Mountains.
Of these three, that west of the Mississippi, comprising
Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, may be left out of consid-
eration, for it was not the object of Northern strategy and
its population was relatively small. This we may call the
* 'right region," looking at it from the north. The "left
region" is that between the Alleghanies or Appalachian
range and the Atlantic, comprising Virginia, the Carolinas,
and Georgia — all seacoast states, and able from their position
to menace Washington. Along the whole coast line as far
south as Pensacola (where the North, thanks to Captain
Slemmer, still held Fort Pickens), the South, at the outbreak
of the war, was mistress of every fortification. This gave
her an advantage which it cost the North much fighting
and many lives to counteract. The "middle region" is the
great sloping plain between the Appalachian range and the

948 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Mississippi, containing Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and
the western extremities of some of the eastern states. This
was where most of the grand maneuvering of the war took
place ; it was the heart of the Confederacy, and was attacked
and defended as such.

The town of Memphis, on the Mississippi, and Charleston,
on the coast of South Carolina, were united by a line of rail-
way; and at Chattanooga, at the east of Tennessee among
the mountains, another road branched off in a northeast di-
rection, and terminated in Richmond. Chattanooga, there-
fore, was a point of vital strategic importance; for this
Memphis-Charleston-Richmond railroad was the only one
connecting the west with the east of the Confederacy. If
the North could seize and hold Chattanooga, the Confed-
eracy would be cut in twain, to its serious detriment. Rec-
ognizing this, the North made the town the object of attack,
and the South bent her energies to protecting it. This she
did by defending a military line between one and two hun-
dred miles to the north of the railway. One end of this line
was at Columbus on the Mississippi, a little below the junc-
tion with it of the Ohio ; the other or eastern end was at
Bowling Green, in Warren County, Kentucky, some two
hundred miles east of Columbus. This military line passed
through Forts Henry and Donelson, midway on its route.
A large river, the Tennessee, flows southward from the
Ohio, until it reaches the Memphis -Charleston railway; it
then turns to the east, following the railway line.

Now, Kentucky being a Northern state, the Union army,
to attack the Columbus-Bowling Green line to the best ad-
vantage, would descend upon it by way of the Ohio, Missis-
sippi and Tennessee rivers, capturing Forts Henry and
Donelson ; and after breaking the line, would march south-
east through Tennessee to Chattanooga. Thereby not only
would the Confederacy be divided, but the Mississippi would
be opened. The Confederate armies in Virginia would be
between two Union armies, one threatening them from

BULL RUN 949

Chattanooga, the other by way of the North via Rich-
mond. This strategy should be the key of the whole
war, to which everything else would be subsidiary. The
Confederate forces in the east could be attacked in detail,
and Richmond would fall of itself. As the South had no
navy, the Atlantic coast and the gulf could be blockaded,
and with the Mississippi in Northern hands, she would in-
evitably be squeezed to death. — But it was some time before
this general view of the situation was taken.

The first idea of the North was to capture Richmond:
"On to Richmond," to the ordinary apprehension, seemed
to be the cry that meant immediate victory. The attempt
to reach Richmond, which would have been of minor value
had it succeeded, was rendered impossible by the first great
battle of the war, in which the two armies met at Bull Run
in Virginia, with the result that the Northerners were stam-
peded, and thrown back in dire confusion upon Washington.
The North was thereby admonished that this war was to
be no hundred-days affair; and under McClellan as com-
mander-in-chief an army of two hundred thousand men was
carefully drilled during the fall and winter. By February
they were ready to move, or at all events Stanton, the
Secretary of War, thought they were, and General Grant
performed the task of ascending the Tennessee River and
capturing Forts Henry and Donelson. This exploit was
accomplished on the 16th of February, 1862, and gave the
North control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, though
the Mississippi was not yet clear. The South failed to re-
capture these points, being finally defeated in the attempt
by the defeat at Murf reesboro on the last day of the year.
But the war was still only at its beginning. The South
suffered seriously this year from the blockade of her ports,
which prevented her from selling her cotton, and thus ob-
taining the sinews of war. But neither McClellan, Pope nor
Burnside was able to take Richmond. On the 22d of Sep-
tember Lincoln announced that from January 1st, 1863, all

950 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

slaves in the seceded states would be declared free. Thus
the second year of the war ended with no conclusive advan-
tage on either side; but the South was straitened by the
blockade and by Grant's successes, and had acted hitherto
on the defensive.

The year 1863 gave the South several successes, though
they were not so important as they appeared. General Lee,
aided by storms, turned back Burnside in his attempt on
Richmond, and almost annihilated Hooker's great army at
Chancellorsville, in May. Galveston was retaken by the
Confederates, while Banks failed at Port Hudson, Dupont
in his naval attack on Charleston, and Southern cruisers
did immense injury to Northern commerce. Lee, after de-
stroying Hooker, advanced into Pennsylvania, and met
Meade at Gettysburg. They fought for three days, the
greatest battle of the war, and Lee was defeated and
thrown back. The next day, July 4th, Grant received
the surrender of Vicksburg, and the Mississippi, in the
words of Lincoln, "ran un vexed to the sea."

After the surrender of Vicksburg, Grant won a battle at
Chattanooga, which ended the conflict for that region; and
in March of the year 1864 he was raised to the chief com-
mand of all the Union armies. Under his direction, the war
was brought to a close with a series of masterly maneuvers
worthy of the highest military genius. He left Sherman,
whose worth he knew, to dispose of the Confederate force
in Georgia; he devoted his own attention to the problem
of overthrowing Lee in Virginia. Lee was his peer in the
science of war, but the forces of which Grant was able to
dispose were greater, and their steadiness was invincible.
After a series of engagements lasting for more than a year,
Grant at length planted the Stars and Stripes on the walls
of Richmond, almost five years to a day after the first
shot fired at Sumter. Sherman, coming up from his march
through Georgia, had prevented Lee's junction with John-
ston's army in North Carolina, and forced his surrender to

BULL RUN 951

Grant at Appomattox Court House on the 9th of April.
Johnston surrendered to Sherman two weeks later, and the
final capitulations had taken place by the end of May.
Such were the leading features of the Civil War; and
though the agony and exhaustion inflicted upon the South
were severe, she bravely and honorably accepted the issue
of the hazard she had tempted. She might have maintained
a harassing guerrilla warfare indefinitely; but the South
were a civilized, not a barbarous, people ; they had done their
best and their utmost ; there was no disgrace in their defeat ;
and they manfully faced its consequences. The leaders,
however, were unwilling to give the guarantees which the
North required against any future renewal of the war; and
the result was the passage, two years after the war closed,
of the Reconstruction Act, which divided ten Southern states
into five military districts with Union army officers in com-
mand. These states could not resume their regular place in
the Union until, in the words of the Act, a convention of
delegates ''elected by the male citizens of whatever race,
color or previous condition' ' should frame a constitution,
which being ratified by the people and approved by Con-
gress, should go into operation; and the legislature there-
upon elected should adopt the fourteenth amendment — ■
which secured to freedmen the right of citizenship, de-
clared the validity of the national debt, and regulated the
basis of representation, and disqualification from office.

It is not surprising that some years passed before this
ultimatum was accepted by all the states; the stumbling-
block, of course, being the stipulation that the emancipated
slaves should be entitled to vote. Indeed, the policy of this
step is still open to question. White men, especially South-
ern white men, can never submit to negro domination ; but
if, as might easily happen, the negroes in a district outnum-
bered the whites, and chose to elect negroes to office, the
whites must either submit or rebel. As a matter of fact it
has usually happened that the negroes in the South have

952 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

either been kept from the polls, or their votes have been
cast under white direction ; and the relations of the white
and black races in the Southern states are in many respects
unsatisfactory. Yet if the negro in the South is neither to
be a citizen nor a slave, his position is anomalous, and open
to another class of objections.

We will now proceed to fill in the above outline with some
details. Missouri and Kentucky, as has been said, did not
join the Confederacy; but their attitude led to some interest-
ing complications. In Kentucky, the governor and civil offi-
cers were mainly Southern sympathizers ; but inasmuch as
the people were fairly divided, it was determined that the
state should remain neutral during the war, affording succor
to neither side, and operating against neither. This singu-
lar stand, which might be regarded as secession in another
form, was maintained for nearly a year. But at the first
opportunity, the Union party in the state contrived to elect
a loyal legislature; and when, in September, 1861, General
Polk, of the Confederates, moved his army into Kentucky,
resolutions were passed declaring his act to be a violation of
neutrality, and Kentucky declared herself a Union state.
This put an end to the strange spectacle of enlistments for
South and North going on in the same towns ; and it was a
severe loss to the Confederacy.

In Missouri the course of events was different. Here the
Southern sympathizers predominated ; but the Union class,
the majority of whom were Germans, were the more alert
and energetic ; and they had the benefit of being led by two
men — Frank P. Blair and Captain Nathaniel Lyon — who
possessed phenomenal strength and ability. Blair attended
to the political matters, while Lyon managed the military
maneuvers. Blair combined the Union men with the neu-
trals with such effect that the secessionists found it impos-
sible to elect delegates to a convention which had been called
to discuss the question of leaving the Union. But when Lin-

BULL RUN 953

coin's call for seventy-five thousand men was made, the state
governor, Jackson, refused to supply men for an "unholy
crusade" whose objects were "inhuman and diabolical";
though he did not scruple at the same time to raise and drill
men with a view to their joining the Confederate army.
Blair, on the other hand, raised a force of "Home Guards";
and these two forces were drilling at the same time under
the flag of the United States. Neither party, however, had
arms; and both plotted to seize the arsenal. Jackson se-
cretly sent to the Confederate government for cannon, which
were promised him; but Lyon, meanwhile, obtained the ap-
pointment of commander of the arsenal, and immediately
issued arms to the Home Guards. A few days later he hap-
pened to be on the levee when the cases containing the can-
non arrived, labeled "marble. " Their appearance was suspi-
cious, and following them up to their destination in Jackson's
camp, he discovered the truth. The next day he led his men
against the camp, in spite of the misgivings of many of his
party, and captured it without a struggle. As he was march-
ing back with his prisoners he was attacked by the mob, and
fired at ; his men returned the fire and killed or wounded
twenty. He followed up this exploit by seizing St. Louis,
the governor and state officials taking flight ; and all further
efforts to carry the state out of the Union ceased. Lyon was
a veteran of the Mexican war, and a man of iron decision ;
and his service in saving Missouri at this early and impor-
tant stage was of incalculable value.

The month following the surrender of Fort Sumter passed
by with no shots fired, but in active preparation on both
sides. The Southern troops were collecting in northern Vir-
ginia around the village of Manassas, about thirty miles from
Washington; they blocked the Potomac, threw up fortifica-
tions, and laid plans for a forward movement. Finding
themselves unmolested, they advanced their lines so far that
President Lincoln, looking from the windows of the White
House with a glass, could see their flag waving across the

954 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

river. Winfield Scott was in command at Washington, and
there were upward of twelve thousand troops in Washing-
ton; but the old general hoped the "revolt" would presently
subside, and was reluctant to invade Virginia while any hope
of peace remained.

But when, on the 23d of May, it became known that Gen-
eral Lee was laying out works on Arlington Heights, com-
manding the city, Scott ordered his troops across the river.
The advance was in three divisions, the third being led by
Ellsworth's Zouaves, which seized the town of Alexandria,
the population of which was secessionist. A secession flag
was flying from the roof of the hotel. Taking one or two
men with him, Ellsworth entered the hotel, intending to
lower the flag ; on the second landing he was confronted by
a man with a shotgun loaded with buckshot, who fired at
him at close range, not only sending the charge through his
heart, but forcing with it Ellsworth's gold badge inscribed
"Non nobis sed pro patria." Ellsworth fell dead; one of his
companions shot his slayer through the head and bayoneted
him. Ellsworth was one of the most conspicuous of the
young leaders of the North ; he was a magnificent athlete,
and his Zouaves were all picked men. The incident made
a deep impression on the country, and both Ellsworth and
the man who had killed him were regarded as martyrs by
the opposing sections. The Union outposts seized Mount
Vernon, the home of Washington, and Arlington House,
the residence of Robert E. Lee; the site of the latter is now
a military cemetery, in which repose the bones of sixteen
thousand Union soldiers.

Meanwhile Fortress Monroe, at the end of the peninsula
formed by York and James Rivers, was occupied by Union
troops under General Butler ; but the Confederates threw up
earthworks to shut them in, using great numbers of slaves
for the purpose. Some of these escaping into the fortress,
their owners demanded them back, on the ground that rights
of property were to be respected. But Butler informed tho

BULL RUN 955

Southern gentlemen that although property was to be re-
spected, war material did not fall under that category ; the
negroes, having been employed in building fortifications,
were war material, and as such "contraband of war."
Therefore they would not be returned. This bit of reason-
ing caught the popular fancy, and the Southern negro was
a "contraband" in the common speech thenceforth. The
government also accepted Butler's ruling as good in law,
and in future all negroes who came within the Union lines
were declared free. They were in the same category with
sandbags and picks, blunderbusses and mortars.

The peninsula afforded a direct road to Richmond, and
in order to clear it Butler ordered an advance in two col-
umns, from Hampton and Newport News, to surprise Gen-
eral Magruder at Great Bethel. Signals were devised by
which the two columns should recognize each other when
they formed their junction. But the officer commissioned
to impart these signals to the Newport News column forgot
to do so, and the consequence was that it was fired upon by
that from Hampton. The mistake was soon discovered, but
the firing had alarmed Magruder and put him on his guard,
and the Union troops, weary with their night march, were
repulsed from his works, losing fifty men, among them young
Theodore Winthrop, a descendant of the famous Winthrops
of Boston. For the second time in the short course of this
war death had showed that he loved a shining mark.

The early actions of the war were little more than skir-
mishes, and showed only that the troops on both sides were
brave, and that they were unfamiliar with the operations of
war. The passes of the mountains of north and west Vir-
ginia were held by the Confederates, and as they afforded
access to the interior of the state, McClellan determined to
capture them. Detaching Rosecranz to march to the rear
of the enemy's position on Rich Mountain, he prepared to
engage in front; Rosecranz found General Pegram with
two thousand men opposed to him ; but after some irregular

956 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

fighting he captured his positions, and compelled his retreat;
and Garnett, finding his rear thus exposed, followed him,
pursued by McClellan. Pegram was killed, and Garnett
surrendered; and West Virginia was thenceforward free
from Confederate armies. But the fear which McClellan
had expressed, in his address to his troops, that they "would
not find foemen worthy of their steel," was premature.
McClellan was destined to hold another opinion of South-
ern soldiers before long.

The evil of short terms of enlistment was now once more
exemplified in our experience. Most of the seventy-five thou-
sand men called out by Lincoln had enlisted for three months,
and their term was nearly up, yet nothing had been done.
Nothing, that is, that the people could recognize ; for it seems
to the uninstructed observer that troops drilling in camp are
idle. The general officers were of course aware that drill is
an indispensable preliminary to effective work in the field;
and to the cry of "On to Richmond" they replied that they
could not lead an undisciplined army on such an enterprise
with any reasonable chance of success. But the clamor did
not cease ; and Lincoln and Scott were at length obliged to
attempt something. And there was an operation which it
seemed not too rash to undertake.

The railroad from Richmond and that from the Shenan-
doah Valley to the west, met at Manassas Junction in Vir-
ginia, five-and-thirty miles south of the Potomac. It was
the key to the railway system of the state, and was held by
the Confederates under General Beauregard, with an ad-
vance line along the brook known as Bull Run. The Con-
federates at this point numbered twenty-five thousand ; but
in the Shenandoah Valley was Johnston, with ten thousand
more. He, however, was confronted at Harper's Ferry by
Patterson, with double his number; so the chance of his
being able to re-enforce Beauregard seemed remote. Mac-
dowell was ordered to attack Beauregard with thirty thou*
sand men. There was considerable delay in getting together

BULL RUN 957

the war material and supplies, and Confederate spies kept
the Southern generals apprised of what was doing. Of this
information they made excellent use.

Patterson was a soldier of 1812, and not proficient in the
later developments of warlike science ; but he had for some
time been urging Scott to let him attack Johnston, and Scott
finally gave him permission. He advanced accordingly, ex-
pecting a fierce resistance ; but to his astonishment found the
works empty and the guns spiked. Suspecting a ruse, he
became exceeding cautious ; and when Macdowell was ready
to make his movement on Manassas Junction, and Scott
wrote to Patterson to engage Johnston in order to prevent
his re-enforcing Beauregard, Patterson delayed, and finally
retreated, intending another maneuver. But Johnston was
far more than his match in strategy ; and was on his way
to join Beauregard while Patterson was imagining that he
had him in a trap.

On the 15th of July Macdowell, with his enormous train
of impedimenta, was ready to move ; and Beauregard, through
a spy, was informed of the number of men who were to be led
against him, and of the precise hour at which they would set
out. They left Washington, in fact, on the night of the 16th,
and advanced as if going to a picnic ; it was impossible to
keep order in the ranks ; the scouts did not know their duty,
and the officers had little control. They reached Fairfax
Court House by noon of the 17th, and spent the night there
in a frolic, looting several of the abandoned houses ; some of
them paraded the streets in women's clothes. At nine the
next morning they were at Centreville, where a battle was
expected. The Confederates had their base at Manassas
Junction, and their advance line on Bull Run ; the stream
is sluggish, the country rolling and lightly timbered. Twenty
thousand Confederates were posted along the winding course
of the stream behind earthworks, extending eight miles. There
were seven fords and one bridge to be defended. The obv^'
ous course for Macdowell to adopt was to outflank his enemy,

958 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

and this he prepared to do on the south. His position at
Centreville, on the north, was intended to hide his purpose.
But his engineers reported that the southern or right flank
could not be turned, and the plan had to be altered to turn
the left flank. Meanwhile General Tyler, sent forward to
reconnoiter, but with orders not to bring on a general en-
gagement, disobeyed his instructions so far as to start up a
lively and quite useless little battle at Blackburne's ford;
after losing sixty men he retired, leaving the Confederates
with the elation of victory. The night passed with nothing
done ; but Johnston was marching at full speed to re-enforce
Beauregard, Macdowell flattering himself that he was safe
in Patterson's grasp. It was not until Saturday, July 20th,
that the engineers reported the ford passable ; in the interval
a regiment and a battery whose term had expired turned
their backs on the enemy, and, in spite of the entreaties
of Macdowell, marched back to Washington. Such are the
incredible poltrooneries occasionally to be seen in war.

MacdowelTs plan was now made — an attack on the right
flank at Blackburne's ford; a feint at the center, and the
main attack, under Macdowell, was to proceed by night to
Sudley's ford on the left flank, and crumple up the enemy's
line. This latter movement was accomplished, though the
troops, unused to marching, spent two or three hours longer
than had been calculated on the route, and were exhausted
by their efforts. But the attack on the center had not
been strong enough to deceive Evans, who commanded the
Confederates at that point, and when he was apprised of
the movement against the flank, he left the ford and faced
it, holding the Federals until he was re-enforced. But by
this time the engagement had become general, and there
was a good deal of confusion on both sides among soldiers
unaccustomed to battle; the Union men, upon the whole,
slowly forcing back the Confederates. Presently the retreat
became a rout, and men who had fought bravely and stead-
ily an hour before were running in something like panic, too

BULL RUN 959

bewildered to respond to the frantic efforts of their officers to
rally them. Everywhere was smoke, and the roaring and
rattling of guns, and great bodies of men in motion. The
day seemed lost to the Confederates.

But a brigade of troops, five regiments and a couple of
batteries, had just arrived from the Shenandoah Valley,
and were drawn up in line across the turnpike along which
General Bee's brigade was retreating in confusion. In
front of the line stood its commander. "They are beating
us back!" cried Bee, galloping up to him. "Very well, sir,
we'll give them the bayonet," replied Jackson, composedly.
"See!" yelled Bee to his men: "there stands Jackson like
a stone wall!" It was a famous word, and gave the then
almost unknown commander his title.

The flying men rallied on the colors; Beauregard and
Johnston came up; the Federal advance was checked.
There was an interval during which both armies re-
mained in position; but the Confederates had now learned
that the main attack was on their left, and they were con-
centrating there. In a wood covering the crest of a hill
they formed in strength, and their batteries began to shell
the Federals below. Macdowell had to face a body of
troops now equal in numbers to his own, many of them
fresh, and strongly intrenched. He sent Rickett's and
Griffin's batteries to open fire, but they were insufficiently
supported, and the enemy's fire was masked by the woods.
They would have maintained their positions, however, had
they not at that juncture been attacked by a regiment com-
ing up on their right, which were mistaken for Federals
until they discharged their muskets pointbiank into Grif-
fin's battery. This regiment, under Kirby Smith, had just
arrived from the Shenandoah, and their action settled the
fortunes of the battle. The men supporting the batteries
became panic stricken and fled, the Zouaves among them.
The deserted guns were seized by a Virginia regiment. But
a regiment from Michigan recaptured them. Meanwhile the

960 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

effort to carry the hill still continues and more than once
almost succeeded ; but at the critical moment the attackers
are driven back; and they are weakening while the others
are constantly gaining strength. For four or five hours the
assault was kept up; then, gradually, the Union army began
to crumble to pieces. The want of discipline again made it-
self felt, and now disastrously. Regimental organizations
were lost; squads and individuals stopped fighting and
walked off to the rear. Officers lost their men, and men
their officers. There was no panic or stampede, but the
Union army was steadily melting away. The Confederates
did not know they had won a victory, and for a time the
Federals did not think themselves beaten ; but that impres-
sion finally gained upon them, and then they began to re-
treat in earnest. They were not pursued ; they had not been
defeated; but they ran, with ever-increasing good will. As
evening drew on, a scene was witnessed such as had seldom
before been seen in warfare. A great throng of sight-seeing
non-combatants had come out from Washington in the rear
of the army, to witness the defeat of the "rebels." These
turned tail at the first alarm, and streamed headlong north-
ward. All things that could retard flight were thrown
aside, and the ground was encumbered with the most gro-
tesque heterogeny of articles imaginable, from champagne
bottles and note-books to cannon and brass horns. This
headlong horde, pursued only by itself, converged toward
a narrow suspension bridge over the stream called Cub Run,
and there a terrible jam occurred; and to make it worse, a
shell from a Confederate battery, which had been posted to
command this bridge, exploded on an artillery wagon which
had reached the middle of the bridge, and wrecked it there,
blocking the way for all who followed. Here, accordingly,
was a vast assortment of plunder for the surprised Confed-
erates to pick up the next day. Onward poured the endless
mob in a dismal flood; it had been very sultry during the
day, and the yellow dust kicked up by the marching thou-

MAJ.-GEN. PHILIP H. SHERIDAN, U.S.A,

v.\tf

.v0'

THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOr, L ' *OX lAU6
T.I.D N FOt NDA'iONS. v

MAJ.-GEiN. JOHN C. FREMONT, U.S.A.

LIEUT.-GEN. WINFIELD SCOTT, U.S.A.

pSbuc library

A,-0r>. L^OX AND
TiArj mFO,nDa:IONS.

MAJ.-GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN, U.S.A.

BULL RUN 961

sands hung in the air, and was mixed with the smoke of
powder and the grime of the powder itself in the skins
of the unhappy ones. A drizzling rain which set in on
the Sunday night achieved what had seemed impossible
in making the general misery greater. Such a draggle-
tailed, wretched, shame-faced, exhausted, sleepy, disor-
ganized and demoralized multitude of tramps as poured
into Washington all the next day was never seen before.
The dismay caused by their appearance (except among the
numerous sympathizers with the South who dwelt in the
city and ill concealed their triumph) was profound. It
seemed as if the Union had gone to pieces, and the Con-
federates would presently come whooping down Pennsyl-
vania Avenue. It was not quite so bad as that, however.
Macdowell had succeeded in partly checking the rout at
Centreville, and the brigades of Richardson and Blenker,
which had been in reserve as a rear guard, formed in good
order behind the fugitives and kept off the half-hearted pur-
suit of the enemy's cavalry. Indeed, it would have put the
fugitives in much better conceit with themselves had a real
pursuit taken place ; they could not have run faster, and it
would have helped them to explain to curious inquirers the
reasons of their flight.

But all things have an end, and the retreat of the Union
army was over at last. Jefferson Davis, on the battlefield,
was declaring that "we have won a glorious but dear-bought
victory." In truth it was neither dear-bought nor glorious;
for the total losses on the Confederate side were but three
hundred and eighty killed and a little over a thousand
wounded, out of thirty thousand troops engaged ; and the
Federals had lost little more, except the fourteen hundred
prisoners captured. The victory, moreover, turned out to
be rather to the advantage of the Union than of the Con-
federacy ; since the latter jumped to the conclusion that one
Southerner was a match for five Northerners; while the
Northerners perceived that they had no summer picnic be-
U.S.— 41 Vol. III.

962 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

fore them, but a real war with men who could fight, and
made their preparations accordingly. A new call for men
was issued, and Congress voted five hundred million dollars
to continue the war. The South, on the contrary, thinking
the war over, lost thousands of men who returned to their
homes from the front ; and the Southern cities began disput-
ing as to which of them should be the seat of the government,
which was now believed to be finally established.

"Walt Whitman, in a description of the retreat, written in
prose which was intended to be such, but which has much
poetic spirit in it, says of Lincoln that "if there were noth-
ing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with,
it is enough to send him with his wreath to the memory of
all future time, that he endured that hour, that day, bitterer
than gall, indeed a crucifixion day; that it did not conquer
him ; that he unflinchingly stemmed it, and resolved to lift
himself and the Union out of it." The President indeed
rallied more quickly than did the army; while Macdowell
was still at Centreville, trying to get something like order
into the struggling mass, he received a telegram from Wash-
ington saying, "We are not discouraged." There was cer-
tainly no need for discouragement; what was wanted was
longer terms of service, and its corollary, discipline. There
were men enough to do the fighting, and of as good material
as any in the world ; but they must be molded into soldiers
— between whom and persons who are not soldiers there
are vital differences. Half a million men were summoned
to defend the Union, and they came. But they had to be
transformed into an army; and the work of transforming
them was intrusted to George Brinton McClellan, who had
already been fortunate in the little battle of Rich Mountain.
McClellan suffered much criticism for his dilatory tactics
later on, and was even thought by the censorious to be not
so ardent in the Union cause as he should have been ; but
he did what was far better than setting mobs in motion
toward Richmond: he spent eight months in drilling "the

BULL RUN 963

Army of the Potomac." consisting of about two hundred
thousand men. These men were enlisted for three years,
and long before that period had elapsed they were the equals
of any soldiers who ever fought. The country owes a last-
ing debt of thanks to the "Little Napoleon" for this, for the
good effects of it were felt throughout the war. McClellan
was a very young officer at this time, and very scientific,
and he had the cocksureness of the cadet still about him;
he was set in his opinions, and his opinions often betrayed
a sore lack of wisdom and insight; but he was a good sol-
dier in many essentials, and might, with sufficient experi-
ence in a subordinate position, have grown to be a great one.
But to put such a man into the position of supreme command
was to spoil him, and cut short his career. He was not ready
for it; and what was more serious for him, he thought he
was. He was very popular with his soldiers, and this in-
creased his misapprehension of himself. But the trouble
was, in those late summer days of 1861, that the North
needed a leader, and had to take him who seemed likeliest
without too much investigation. One after another must be
tested— and a severer test was never applied to generals —
and either discarded or adopted as the case might be. They
must be tested in the field, for there was no military board
to examine them; they must be judged by their perform-
ance, though often a judgment formed on this basis would
be unjust or mistaken ; for the men in "Washington — Stanton
and Lincoln — who had to make the appointments and pass
the censures were wholly ignorant of war when they began,
and had to learn, like the privates in the field, as they went
along. Something must also be allowed to professional
rivalries and jealousies, as tending to darken counsel.
Many of these officers had been in West Point together;
they had known one another there, and "had their opinion"
as to one another's ability — and as to their own. All West
Pointers alike, moreover, were disposed to look down upon
the Volunteer officers with pitying contempt, though the

964 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

record of these, when the war was ended, was far more
than creditable. Taking all things together, the difficulties
with which the Union government had to contend at the
beginning of the war can hardly be exaggerated. It is not
surprising that they did not do better ; it is astonishing that
they did so well. It was a stern school for all concerned,
and they graduated from it with honors.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC

HILE the Army of the Potomac, under Mc-
Clellan, was receiving its lessons in drill, a
lively little war was going on in Missouri,
which was about equally divided between
secessionists and Union men; the division
often extending to families, and separating
father from son, or brother from brother.
A motley army of Rebels, with no uniforms, and with
equipments to a great extent improvised, was collected in
the southwest corner of the state, and another crossed the
Mississippi to New Madrid. The first army was commanded
by Price and Macbride, the other by Pillow. Their united
strength was about ten or twelve thousand men. They
planned to effect a junction and move on St. Louis, driving
the Federals out of the state; to oppose them was only Lv<m
at Springfield, half way between the two Confederate armies
and to the north of them. He was joined by General Sigel,
and they mustered about five thousand troops. The Con-
federates attacked after an exhausting march; but Lyon
had sent Sigel round to attack their rear, and at first the

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 965

day seemed going against them; but Sigel's men were sur-
prised by a body of men under the Union flag, who, upon
coming to close quarters, discovered themselves as Confed-
erates, and drove the Federals in a panic. This left Lyon
to continue the fight alone, which he did with great valor;
but he was killed while leading his column at the enemy, hav-
ing already been twice wounded. In that charge the enemy
were temporarily repulsed, and the Union men seized the
opportunity to retreat; they were not pursued: "we were
glad to see them go, ' ' said a Confederate officer. The total
losses on either side were not greatly over a thousand ; but
the death of Lyon, who had showed the finest soldierly quali-
ties, outweighed that of many ordinary men. The battle was
lost largely because raw troops cannot be trusted to carry
out maneuvers under fire; but the Confederates were as raw
as the Federals. It was numbers that won the day; in per-
sonal courage the two sides were alike.

Another defeat which was not a disgrace was sustained
by the Union forces under Colonel Mulligan, a valiant
fighter, as his name implies. He had with him three thou-
sand men, and he intrenched himself on a hill to withstand
the attack of Price with fourteen thousand. He was short
of provisions and ammunition, and the conflict was hopeless;
the army of Price, with plenty of artillery, completely sur-
rounded his position, and might have carried it at once by
assault ; but being still too green to know their own strength,
they proceeded by bombardment. At the end of the day
Mulligan still held his position, though he had suffered loss
and was in straits for water, and his ammunition was run-
ning low. The next day the attack was resumed ; bales of
hemp were used as movable breastworks by the enemy to
approach the works. Mulligan set them afire with hot shot;
they were extinguished and again pushed forward ; suddenly
the firing ceased, for, unknown to the gallant Irishman, a
lieutenant of his command had displayed the white flag.
He ordered it hauled down, and that the fighting go on.

966 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

But his officers protested that this was butchery, and he re-
luctantly called a council of war, which was unanimous for
surrender. "We gave up the place, but I don't know nor
care upon what conditions," said Mulligan afterward. His
valiant resistance was a stimulus to Northern spirits, and his
Irish Brigade carried the word "Lexington" on its banner
ever after.

It was now November, and Fremont, who had been in
the northeast part of the state, advanced with a considerable
force toward the southwest, driving the enemy before him;
and at Springfield a Polish officer of his bodyguard charged
with one hundred and fifty cavalry upon fifteen hundred
Confederates, put them to flight, raised the Union flag over
the court house, captured the enemy's flag, and rode back.
But Fremont apprehended that Price, whom he was pushing
back, might be re-enforced by an army of ten thousand men
under Polk, at Columbus, Kentucky; and he ordered a
young subordinate of his, Ulysses S. Grant by name, to
make a demonstration on the Mississippi to keep them in
check.

Grant had resigned his commission in the regular army
after serving through the Mexican war, but had re-enlisted
at the outbreak of the Rebellion, and after some incidental
disappointments, now found himself heading in the right
direction. He set out by river for Cairo with five regi-
ments, some cavalry, and a couple of guns, on the 6th of
November. The enemy were in full force at Columbus ; but
at Belmont, above, there was a detachment which he landed
to attack, sending down his gunboats meanwhile to amuse
the ten thousand in Columbus. Polk was at first puzzled
by Grant's movements, for he believed that a movement on
Columbus must be intended, and was at a loss to under-
stand why Belmont, on the other side of the river, should be
attacked. Comprehending at length that the fighting was
to be at the latter place, he began to move troops across the
river to take part in it. Grant meanwhile was moving

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 967

steadily through the woods on the Rebel camp ; the fighting
was stubborn, and he had his horse killed; but the Rebels
gave way at last, and plunged down the steep bank to the
river, where they might all have been captured had the
Federals acted in a rational manner; but they turned to
plundering the camp, and could not be rallied till Polk was
upon them, between them and their transports. This was
where a little discipline would have been worth many thou-
sand men. They were panic-stricken, and could not obey
orders ; but ' ' We cut our way in here, and we can cut our
way out again," said Grant; and at length he reformed
them and they succeeded in forcing a way to their boats.
When they were ready to leave, Grant went back to look
after his rear guard ; but the rear guard had deserted its
post and was already aboard. Grant himself only escaped
by riding his horse down the almost perpendicular clay bank
of the river. A plank was thrown out to the shore, and he
rode on board the transport. The enemy fired on the boats
from the banks ; but the boats returned the fire with shell,
inflicting some loss. A bullet went through a sofa in the
cabin of the transport, on which Grant had a moment before
been lying. Each army in this engagement lost about six
hundred men. It was only another skirmish ; but how near
the North came to losing the man who was chiefly instru-
mental in leading her armies to victory ! What is the mean-
ing of these "narrow escapes"? The ways of God are un-
searchable. Washington, Grant, almost all great command-
ers, have felt death brush against them as he passed. So
does the common private in the ranks; and it is often the
lives that seem most precious that are lost. But human his-
tory is evolved, and that which is to be is accomplished.

The so-called battle of Ball's Bluff was an affair hardly
comprehensible. The banks of the Potomac thirty miles
above Washington are steep and high, and are wooded to
their edge, but at the bluff called after the name of the
farmer who lived near it, there is a clearing about seven

968 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

acres in area. Here, of all places in the world, a force of
Federals numbering seven hundred, who had been sent over
to reconnoiter, sat down to rest on the 21st of October. On
the Maryland shore opposite was Colonel Baker with another
force. Hearing firing, and finding that there were not boats
adequate to bring the seven hundred back while an enemy
was firing at them, Baker, a brave man but no tactician,
reasoned that it was incumbent on him to go over to them ;
since they might hold the enemy in check till he arrived,
when the combined forces would be sufficient for victory.
The Confederates let him and his men come across, and
then developed their attack. Three more Confederate regi-
ments joined the others and fire was opened from the woods.
Baker, walking up and down before his men to encourage
them, was suddenly assailed by a single warrior, who came
out in front of his comrades and killed him with his revolver
at five paces' distance. The second in command ordered a
retreat, and the Federals began to hurry down the steep
slope to the river; the Confederates stood above and shot
down the huddled masses at their leisure, and many were
drowned in attempting to swim the swift stream. Between
seven and eight hundred survivors were captured. If the
Federals had arranged this battle especially with a view to
insuring their own slaughter, they could not have managed
it better.

All operations of this kind, from the battle of Bull Run
to the time when Grant began to hammer at the line of
defense extending between Bowling Green and Columbus,
were in the nature of what boxers would call sparring for
an opening, and to learn each other's style and resources.
No comprehensive scheme of a general campaign had been
worked out on either side. Indeed the Confederates, though
they were successful in most of the engagements, were in a
defensive attitude ; they made no attempt to invade North
ern territory. They evidently misunderstood the Northern
situation and purposes, and fancied the war was practically

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 969

over; and this seduced them into neglecting preparations,
military and financial, which would have served them well
later on. They were confident that they could protect them-
selves in their own chosen country, and did not think it
worth their while to become aggressive. Their commissa-
riat was inefficient, and they wasted power in incoherent
activities. They gradually retreated before our advance
in western Virginia, which was resolutely loyal; for the
mountaineers had never had slaves, and owned no sympa-
thy for those who did. Operations by sea during this first
year of the war were favorable at the North; Pamlico
Sound, within Cape Hatteras, was lost to the South by
the capture of the two forts at Hatteras Inlet by Commo-
dore Stringham, and their occupation by General Butler.
Later, on the 29th of October, the forts at Port Royal were
assaulted by Commodore Dupont of the Federal navy and
garrisoned by a force under General Thomas W. Sherman.
The efforts of the South were confined to blockade-run-
ning and to privateering, in both of which they were fairly
successful: the privateer "Savannah" ran the blockade at
Charleston in June; but her career was stopped by the
United States brig "Perry," after she had captured one
prize. The "Petrel," another privateer, was captured
through the mistake she made in attacking the United
States frigate "St. Lawrence," under the delusion that she
was a merchantman. Suddenly the black sides of the war-
ship grinned horribly with tiers of guns, and the "Pet-
rel" was sunk before she could get out of range. Captain
Semmes, however, of the privateer "Sumter," from New
Orleans, achieved fame and made several valuable captures;
but he was finally bottled up by the United States "Tusca-
rora" in the Bay of Gibraltar, and could escape only by
selling his vessel.

The most stirring sea affair of the year was the holding
up of the British ship "Trent" by Captain Wilkes of the
United States steamer ' ' San Jacinto, ' ' and the taking from

9/0 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

her of the Confederate commissioners Slidell and Mason.
These gentlemen were on their way to Europe to try to
negotiate an alliance with England or France; being en-
couraged thereto by the recognition of belligerency which
these countries had almost immediately accorded to the Con-
federacy. The seizure of them by Wilkes, while under the
protection of a neutral flag, was contrary to international
usages; and England, who was very sensitive to infringe-
ments of these usages when committed by any other nation
than herself, made preparations for war. Her attitude to-
ward the North throughout the war was covertly hostile;
she favored the South for two reasons : first, because she per-
ceived that the prosecution of the war would weaken both
South and North, and, if it were decided by the victory of
the South, would render America no longer formidable ; and
secondly, because the blockade of Southern ports was incon-
venient to England. Northern feeling was much aroused;
it was thought that England was taking advantage of our
embarrassment to injure us; and there was a large party
who advocated accepting her offer of battle. But Lincoln
was not a man to risk the ruin of his country on a point of
pique ; England was technically in the right, and this coun-
try could not afford to fight in defense of a wrong, even
were she otherwise in a condition to face so powerful a
nation as England on the sea. The act of Captain Wilkes
was therefore disavowed, and Slidell and Mason were re-
turned. But there was a latent purpose in the North to
"take it out" of England when opportunity hereafter served.
Fortunately for the peace of the world, the prolongation of
the war, and the complexion of affairs afterward, prevented
this; but the incident kept alive a feeling of hostility to
England which can hardly be said to have disappeared
entirely even yet.

At the close of the year, then, the record showed that
while the South had won the most considerable battles, the
North had secured West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri;

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 971

had established a tolerably effective blockade of the whole
Southern coast, and had got possession of Fort Monroe, Fort
Pickens, Hatter as Inlet and Port Royal. She had besides
been successful in various small battles or skirmishes. In
the ability of the general officers, both sides seemed on an
equality ; and the courage of the men on the field of battle
was also equal. In this connection it may be observed that
raw soldiers had been found to be almost as trustworthy as
regulars for charges in the face of the enemy, or for holding
positions against attack ; what they lacked was steadiness in
the face of either success or reverse; if they found them-
selves flanked, or were for any reason bewildered and thrown
into confusion, they were apt to run. Only discipline and
experience could correct these faults; and the armies on
either side were sure of getting abundance of both. Opera-
tions in the field were now conducted on a scale, and with
numbers, hitherto unequaled in warfare; and of course
the chances of losing one's bearings were correspondingly
increased.

By the time the year 1862 had set in, the Northern plan
of campaign was mainly settled; there was to be no more
sparring, but fighting in earnest. Half a million men were
ready to serve on the Union side, and perhaps a hundred
and fifty thousand less on the side of the South. Operations
were carried on over a vast area, but the vital movement
was that against the Confederate defense on the Tennessee
and Mississippi rivers, for the command of the east and west
railway. In this, co-operated Thomas on the east, and Buell
and Grant, assisted by the gunboats of Commodore Foote,
on the rivers. The defense was conducted by Beauregard
and A. S. Johnston. The chief and decisive engagements
were the capture by Grant and Foote of Forts Henry and
Donelson, which compelled the evacuation by the Confeder-
ates of Columbus and Bowling Green; the great battle of
Shiloh, which opened Corinth to the Federals; the three
weeks' siege and capture of Island No. 10, in the Mississippi

972 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

below Columbus, by Foote and Pope; and the surrender of
Memphis. At this juncture Bragg, of the Confederates, who
was stationed at Chattanooga, marched on Louisville, his
course taking him across the states of Tennessee and Ken-
tucky, with the object of cutting off the Union communi-
cations. Buell, who was moving southward, fell back to
Nashville, and then, divining Bragg' s plan, he raced against
him for the Ohio, where he arrived first and received large
re-enforcements. This obliged Bragg to fall back to Perry -
ville, forty miles south by west of Louisville ; here he turned
on Buell and a severe battle was fought, Bragg getting
away that night; and Buell, who had suffered him to es-
cape, was superseded by Rosecranz. Grant, meanwhile,
whose force had been weakened by the re-enforcements sent
to Buell, was threatened by Price and Yan Dorn, with a
view to the recapture of Corinth. Grant maneuvered, with
the aid of Rosecranz, to defeat them separately; but owing
to a misunderstanding, Price escaped Rosecranz, and unit-
ing with Yan Dorn, the two besieged Rosecranz in Corinth,
but were defeated, and pursued with loss. Assuming com-
mand of Buell's army at Nashville, Rosecranz set out to
encounter Bragg at Murfreesboro', twenty -five miles south-
east. Each general attacked the other's right. Bragg was
at first successful, falling on his enemy as the latter's left
was crossing a small river. Sheridan, however, supported
Rosecranz 's weak right until his left could get into action;
upon which the Confederates charged in vain. Renewing
the attack two days later, and being again repulsed, Bragg
retreated ; but the losses on both sides had been enormous —
a fourth part of the number engaged. Chattanooga was
thus laid open to the Federals.

A simultaneous attempt by Grant in co-operation with
Sherman to capture Vicksburg, further down the Missis-
sippi, was defeated by a brilliant cavalry raid by Yan Dorn,
destroying Grant's supplies at Holly Springs. Grant had
meant to descend the river with Porter from Memphis,

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 973

while Sherman was to make his attack at Chickasaw
Bayou, north of Vicksburg. Sherman, knowing nothing
of the event which kept Grant from moving, made his
attack accordingly, but was repulsed. Farragut had al-
ready captured New Orleans; Burnside had got possession
of Roanoke Island, controlling the coast of upper North
Carolina. Successes in Florida and Georgia put every city
on the coast except Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington
into Federal hands; to counterbalance these victories, the
iron-clad "Merrimac" entered Hampton Roads and sunk
the "Cumberland" and destroyed the " Congress"; but on
her return to finish her work on the rest of the fleet next
day, she was challenged by the "Monitor," and obliged to
retreat. This duel may be said to have saved the Union
cause; for had the "Merrimac" not been opposed, she and
other vessels of her sort could have destroyed the Union
fleet, Fort Monroe, and the other coast defenses in Union
possession; checked the Peninsular campaign, which was
then in progress; given free egress for Southern Cotton,
and won the support of Europe for the Confederacy. — Let
us now examine some of these operations from a closer
point of view.

At the beginning of the combined movements to break
the Columbus-Bowling Green lino, Buell was at Louisville.
Zollicoffer, a Confederate, was at Mill Spring on the Cum-
berland River, some hundred miles to the south. Against
him Buell sent General Thomas, who, after a march in the
mud, made ready to attack; but the Confederates decided
that they themselves would attack, and they moved by night
on Thomas's camp at Logan's Cross-Roads, ten miles away.
Thomas was too experienced a soldier to be caught off his
guard; but the impact of the Confederates against his left
was not to be resisted ; Zollicoffer himself, in a rubber coat
which hid his uniform, directed the attack. In the misty
drizzle of the January dawn things were of ambiguous as-
pect, and Colonel Frye, a Federal officer, found himself rub-

974 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

bing elbows with the officer in the rubber coat ; each mis-
took the other for one of his side. "Are you fighting your
friends?" asked the Confederate, as Frye was ordering his
men to fire on a Mississippi regiment. — "Certainly not!"
returned Frye, staring: and at that moment Zollicoffer's
aid recognized Frye's uniform and emptied his pistol at it.
Frye could take a hint, even on a January morning; he
drew his revolver, fired a bullet through Zollicoffer's breast,
and was off, himself untouched. Zollicoffer's death took
the heart out of his men; the Ninth Ohio drove through
their center with a bayonet charge; they turned, and in
a few minutes were utterly routed. Thomas pursued
them back to Mill Spring, and made arrangements to
cut off their escape; but a steamer stole up in the night
and had ferried almost all the troops across the river be-
fore dawn. When she was discovered, a shot from the
battery at the river bank sunk her; the stable door was
once more shut after the horse had escaped. But abundant
munitions of war remained to console the victors. The bat-
tle demolished Confederate resistance in the east, and Grant,
Buell and Foote could conduct their operations with an un-
divided mind.

The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, running nearly
parallel for the last hundred miles of their course, empty
into the Ohio within about ten miles of each other, and
forty miles east of the Ohio's junction with the Mississippi,
at Cairo. Roads were almost non-existent in this region,
and indeed in most parts of the United States, at this time,
and the only means of extended travel were by waterway or
railway. The Tennessee and Cumberland, therefore, must
be guarded to prevent the Federals from penetrating the
Confederate line. This was done by the erection of Forts
Henry and Donelson, about eighty or a hundred miles south
of the mouths. Had it not been for the opposition of Mc-
Clellan, this defense would have been attacked by the Union
troops earlier in the war. But McClellan, just then, could

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 975

think of nothing but drill, and Eichmond. On the 2d of
February, however, Grant got permission to attack Fort
Henry on the Tennessee (the western of the two rivers),
and was off from Cairo with seventeen thousand men. The
flotilla, protected by iron-clad gunboats, took the army up
the river in two installments ; some torpedoes obstructing the
channel were removed, and on the morning of the 6th the
troops and gunboats advanced to the assault. The Confed-
erates, who had but four thousand men, were additionally
handicapped by the fact that a freshet in the river had inun-
dated their fort, so that they were fighting mid-leg deep in
water. On the other hand, the roads were almost impassa-
ble, and delayed Grant's march till the fight, conducted be-
tween the fort and gunboats, was over. It was a lively
artillery duel, and the flagship was disabled; but the gun-
boats and the river combined finally prevailed, and Tilgh-
man, having got most of his garrison safety off on the road
to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, twelve miles away,
hauled down his flag, and the victors actually sailed into his
works.

While Grant was preparing to follow on to Fort Donel-
son, he sent the gunboats up the river into Alabama to de-
stroy whatever military works they could find. He recon-
noitered Fort Donelson, and found it mounted on a high hill
at the bend of the Cumberland — a position almost impreg-
nable compared with that of Fort Henry. The approach
up the river was commanded by two water batteries ; it was
skirted by log redoubts and earthworks with abattis extend-
ing for three miles up and down stream. The guns were
heavy, and the garrison numbered twenty thousand men;
for Johnston, who commanded in this district, had concen-
trated all his best troops here. Unfortunately he had in-
trusted the command to General Floyd, formerly Secretary
of War under Buchanan, a man destitute of honor and cour-
age. Grant knew Floyd's character, and planned his attack
accordingly.

976 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The dela}^ caused to his advance by the rains enabled
heavy re-enforcements to reach him by order of Halleck,
and before the critical moment arrived, his fifteen thousand
men had been increased to near thirty. On the morning of
February 12th, a warm, spring-like day, he marched in two
divisions along parallel roads. McClernand and Smith led
the divisions till, toward sunset, they startled the enemy's
pickets. In the' morning a line was formed covering the
land side of the enemy's works. While this was being done,
sharpshooters were thrown forward to harass the enemy.
Finding his line too thin, Grant sent back to Fort Henry for
Lew Wallace, who had been left in charge there with the
rear guard. He was stringing out his men over eight miles
of country; and if the twenty thousand men in the fort
made a sally at any point, it must be successful. But Grant
thought that Floyd would not make a sally, and therefore he
took chances. In his plan of battle, he had intended to use
his troops only to hem in the enemy, letting the gunboats
reduce the water batteries and guard the approaches up and
down stream. But matters turned out differently. In the
first place, McClernand, much annoyed by a battery on the
Confederate left, ordered it taken, though it was a very
strong position, and was defended by five regiments against
the three which were to attack. The assault was gallantly
delivered and long sustained, but it failed, and the loss was
heavy. Night fell and with it came a frost, which added to
the discomfort of the soldiers. But in the morning Wallace
arrived with his command, and was stationed on the Union
left. If Floyd had made a sally that night, he would have
been successful ; but now his chance was gone. The follow-
ing afternoon the gunboats arrived, and opened their bom-
bardment, receiving a vigorous reply. They inflicted seri-
ous damage on the works, but two of them were disabled,
and at evening all dropped down stream out of range. The
honors were with the fort ; but Floyd had become alarmed,
and wished to retreat. During the night ten thousand of

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 977

his troops were massed on the left of the fort, whence a road
goes southward to Charlotte. In the morning the sally be-
gan, the brunt of it falling on McClernand. His division
was forced back, Lew Wallace hesitated to support him
without orders from Grant, who had gone down the river to
confer with Foote, and it was not until late in the day that
he threw his command across the path of the advancing
Confederates and checked them. At that moment Grant
rode up.

He had not anticipated any sortie from Floyd, and had to
make his dispositions at a moment's warning. Happening
•to hear from one of the soldiers that the Confederates were
carrying three days' rations, he at once perceived that their
purpose had been not to attack, but to fight their way out.
He ordered Wallace to retake the position won that morning
from McClernand, and then, riding to the Federal left, he
directed General Smith to carry the formidable works on
the Confederate right.

Wallace intrusted the assault of the position held by the
Confederate Pillow to Colonel Morgan Smith with a Mis-
souri and an Illinois regiment. They met a killing fire, but
continued to go forward; Colonel Smith's cigar was cut
from his mouth by a bullet ; a soldier handed him another,
which he lit, and went on. A few minutes later the Union
men were in the works, and the line of escape which Pillow
had opened, but had delayed to take advantage of, was
closed again. Meanwhile, at the other end of the line,
General Smith, on horseback, his gray hair blowing out
behind him, was leading an even more perilous assault. The
enemy's fire was very terrible; the hill was steep; concealed
rifle-pits and breastworks commanded every part of it; a
formidable abattis delayed the assailants at the most difficult
moment; as they went forward, the ground behind them
was strewn with bodies dead or wounded. General Smith
was the most conspicuous figure there, but his bearing put
a new heart in every man who followed him. The setting

978 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

sun flung the shadows of the Federals before them as at last
they reached the crest of the hill and poured into the works.
The Confederates fled, nor could the valiant Buckner rally
them. It was a great day for the Smiths. It was an ill
day for Floyd and Pillow; and to make it worse, the latter,
after his success in the morning, had telegraphed to John-
ston that he had won a great victory, and the news ap-
peared in all the Southern journals the next morning, at the
very time that Fort Donelson was being unconditionally
surrendered, and Pillow and Floyd, abandoning their trust,
had saved themselves by flight, followed by the hisses of
their own men. For Floyd, fearing to fall into Federal
hands with his record in the War Department, had de-
volved his command upon Pillow, and Pillow had shifted
it to Buckner; who, after their departure, sent word to
Grant to ask him what terms he would accord him. All
the world has heard Grant's reply: "No terms except an
immediate and unconditional surrender can be accepted. I
propose to move immediately upon your works."

On the Sunday morning, February 17th, the Federal
troops marched into the fort with flags flying and bands
playing, while gunboats fired salutes along the river front,
and thousands of spectators cheered. "Had I been in com-
mand, general, you wouldn't have got Donelson so easily,"
remarked Buckner to Grant, afterward. "I shouldn't have
tried it in the way I did," was Grant's reply. For in war,
as in everything else that men do, the personal equation
tells.

This victory took Kentucky and Tennessee from the
South, caused the evacuation of Columbus and Bowling
Green and Nashville, and depressed Southern stock in Eu-
rope. And all over the North gossips were saying to one
another, "This fellow Grant seems to be a good man— who
is he? U. S. Grant :— Unconditional Surrender Grant, I
suppose!"

But Grant had enemies other than those openly opposed

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 979

against him; and some of these, induced by what dishon-
orable jealousy we need not inquire, sought to crush him in
the bloom of his fame. An anonymous letter of abuse was
sent to Halleck at Washington ; his replies to inquiries from
Halleck were kept back in the telegraph office ; and he was
suddenly suspended from command. Before the slanders
were refuted, and he was reinstated, valuable time had been
lost. He had already planned a movement on Corinth, and
now commenced it; but Johnston, one of the best generals
of the Confederacy, had foreseen that this railroad center
would be attacked, and had been preparing its defense.
Beauregard, Polk, Van Dorn, the brave braggart, and
Braxton Bragg assembled there from all quarters with all
the men they could muster, till the total reached fifty thou-
sand. Grant had to work against different material from
that which he had encountered at Fort Donelson.

Grant had about thirty thousand men at Donelson, and
Buell, at Nashville, had thirty-seven thousand. These must
be united, and the Confederates would be outnumbered.
Grant got his army down to Pittsburg Landing on the Ten-
nessee, twenty miles north of Corinth, and his camp extended
to Shiloh church. He was waiting for Buell; but he neg-
lected to fortify his position, and meanwhile rode off to look
for news of Buell at the Landing. The Confederates knew
that Buell was expected, and that if they wished to have the
advantage in the battle, they must not wait to be attacked.
A council of war decided to surprise the Federal camp at
daybreak on the 5th of April. Whether it was a surprise,
or whether it had been anticipated, may never be deter-
mined; the Southerners think it was a surprise; Sherman
and Grant appear to be of another opinion. At all events
the preparations to withstand it were not effective. The
pickets were driven in early in the morning of the 6th, and
though a line was formed after a fashion by Prentiss's regi-
ments, it did not stand before the rush of General Hardee's
troops. Had Hardee pressed on he might have carried the

98o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

commands of Sherman and McClernand; but his men
stopped to plunder Prentiss's camp, and they found the sec-
ond Federal line more stubborn. As the battle continued
over the uneven ground, it became divided into a number
of separate engagements. Sherman was pressed hard by
Hardee, supported by Bragg, and began to be outflanked.
He was separated from Prentiss, but was joined by McCler-
nand, and held his own. The nature of the ground and the
confusion made it impossible for Grant to control the entire
movements, and he applied himself to keeping the various
divisions up to their work, being solicitous chiefly to defend
his position at Pittsburg Landing during the day ; for on the
morrow Buell would arrive. But the Federals were being
worsted, and numbers of them had given up the fight and
were struggling for places of safety along the river bank.
At two in the afternoon Sherman and McClernand, on the
right, were being slowly forced back, until they had lost a
mile; Prentiss and Wallace, hastily intrenched on a low
hill, were holding the key of the Federal battle, and the day
depended upon their resistance. Bragg attacked it again
and again, and was repulsed with terrible slaughter. This
was the "Hornet's Nest" which sent forth so many fatal
stings to its assailants. Further on the left was the brigade
of Hurlbut, intrenched on a similar hill, and making a like
defense. General Johnston, seeing that his men were fal-
tering, rode along the line and told them that he would lead
them. He did lead them up the hill and over the first line,
when he was struck in the leg by a ball, but maintained his
seat for a time, not to dishearten his men. An artery had
been severed, however, and he soon bled to death. It was
an untoward moment for him to die, the best man in the
Confederate armies; had he lived out that day, he might
have defeated Grant and saved the Confederacy. His
troops were put under the command of Beauregard, and
for a while were kept in ignorance of their loss. Bragg
now attacked Prentiss's and Wallace's position in the flank,

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 981

and carried it, Prentiss being surrounded and captured and
Wallace mortally wounded ; but they had resisted for four
hours, and, as it turned out, that was enough. Yet the
battle was now practically won for the Confederates; for
the Federals were shut in by their line on one side, and by
the Tennessee and Snake Creek on the others. Bragg was
about to head the final charge.

But an aid of Beauregard's rode to his side and deliv-
ered an order stopping the pursuit, lest the men be exposed
to the gunboat fire: the "victory was sufficiently complete."
The same order had been given to Polk, and he was drawing
back. "Is a victory ever sufficiently complete !" exclaimed
Bragg. But he obeyed, and the firing ceased. It was near
evening, and the armies lay down where they were. Before
daylight Nelson'-s, McCook's and Cullenden's divisions of
Buell's army had arrived; and also Lew Wallace's force
of seven thousand men. The latter had been on the march
since the previous day, but had taken a road which would
have brought him to the rear of the Confederate's attack,
and might have changed the fortune of the day ; but Grant,
who had been looking for him by the river road, and was
uneasy at his non-appearance, had sent messengers who
found him and caused him to countermarch. The things
that might have been and were not, in war, are past reck-
oning. Wallace and his seven thousand were welcome on
any terms.

With twenty-five thousand fresh troops, it was Grant
who attacked the next morning. The Confederates were
no longer in the conquering humor of the day before ; the
death of Johnston was known, and the re- enforcement of
the Federals; and they felt that Beauregard's incompre-
hensible blunder had taken victory out of their very teeth.
They fought, but with the assurance that they would be
defeated; and that assurance, in battle, is seldom mis-
taken. They gave back, point after point, like a reluctant
tide; until toward evening Beauregard admitted his defeat*

982 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

and turned for Corinth. The night march along the nar-
row and difficult road, beaten upon by a rain which changed
into a cutting hail, was terrible; there was little provision
for the wounded, and three hunderd men died of exhaustion
by the way. They had lost altogether nearly eleven thou-
sand, and had inflicted a still greater loss on their enemy.
But few defeats are so hard to bear as that which should
have been a victory.

The battle had been a strange, anomalous, perplexed
affair, fuD of heroic courage, of mistakes, of accidents;
fought by troops as yet little accustomed to war, and show-
ing the lack of military experience. But in such a school,
lessons are quickly learned, and the soldiers who survived
those two tremendous days might well claim the title of
veterans. "War had few horrors that could find them un-
prepared.

The capture of Roanoke Island, in Pamlico Sound, where
the Confederates had fortified themselves after being driven
from Hatteras Inlet, had been accomplished by General
Burnside in January; and he followed it up by taking
Beaufort and Fort Macon at the Southern extremity of the
Sound. The Federals were greatly superior in numbers to
their enemy in these encounters, and met with few difficul-
ties and small losses. The true center of interest was still
in the west. Polk, after being forced from his strong posi-
tion at Columbus by the fall of Donelson, had betaken him-
self to the tenth island below Cairo in the Mississippi, placed
at the bend of a sharp horseshoe curve, and easily fortified.
The little town of New Madrid, further down the stream,
but, owing to the upward bend of the river after passing
Island No. 10, further north also, was likewise occupied.
Pope soon captured the latter place, but Island No. 10 de-
tained him several weeks, and he finally caused its evacua-
tion by digging a canal twelve miles long across the neck of
land made by the bend of the horseshoe, which gave him

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 983

control of the lower river without running the gantlet of
the Confederate batteries on the Island. Foote's gunboats
had bombarded these works in vain for three weeks; but
the garrison now prepared to escape, and ran right into the
arms of a Federal force which Pope had placed along their
route. Seven thousand prisoners, with guns and other ma-
terial, were the reward of this operation; and Foote, de-
scending the river, met and defeated a Confederate fleet
above Fort Pillow, and that stronghold was abandoned.
Still pushing southward, the Union gunboats engaged a
second fleet off Memphis and destroyed it, compelling the
surrender of the town. This action was on the 5th of June.
It had been rendered possible by the battle of Shiloh, which
broke the Confederate power in that region. The Union line
now extended from Memphis, through Corinth, nearly to
Chattanooga, and was confronted by the Confederates at
Holly Springs, Iuka and Chattanooga, commanded by Van
Dorn, Price and Bragg respectively. While the Federals
were considering whether to make an attack or to await
one, Bragg suddenly passed by their left flank and set off
northward. Buell, fearing that his purpose might be to get
in his rear, fell back on Nashville, where an intercepted
dispatch indicated that Louisville, three hundred miles
away, was Bragg' s destination. There was no one there
to oppose him, and unless Buell could outmarch him, Nash-
ville was lost, and other valuable things also. At Frank-
fort, Bragg was joined by Kirby Smith from Knoxville, and
his advance was continued, Buell racing him on a line con
stantly approaching his own. The two armies would have
arrived simultaneously, had not a burned bridge at Bards-
town delayed Bragg, which gave Buell the advantage by a
day. He was re-enforced at this point till he mustered a
hundred thousand men, quite enough to crush Bragg; but
the Union general had taken a leaf from McClellan's book,
and tarried to organize, while Bragg worked his will to the
south of him. By the time Buell was ready to attack,

984 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Brag was on his way back, with a baggage train forty
miles long full of plunder. The battle of Perry ville, fought
on October 8th, was sharply debated, the success at first be-
ing with the Confederates, and half of the Union army not
being engaged at all. At the end of the day, owing in large
measure to Sheridan's efficiency and courage, there was lit-
tle advantage on either side, the Federals having lost about
four thousand, and the Confederates rather less. But Bragg
perceived that he could not hope to win against Buell's num-
bers, green though most of the troops were ; and during the
night he slipped away. He had tried to dragoon Kentucky
into the Confederacy ; but though their hearts might be will-
ing, their property kept them back, and they would not re-
spond to his summons. But the supplies he took back with
him were of great use to the meagerly furnished Southern
army. Retreating by way of Cumberland Gap, he was not
pursued by Buell, who retired to Nashville, and was super-
seded by Rosecranz ; for to the minds of the government at
"Washington, an ounce of energy and dash, at this juncture,
was worth a pound of caution.

After the minor engagements with Yan Dorn and Price,
Rosecranz moved south to intercept Bragg, who was bound
on another foraging tour. Both generals had in the neigh-
borhood of fifty thousand troops. On the night of Decem-
ber 30th they lay within striking distance, the lines running
north and south, the country level fields with clumps of
cedar, and the stream of Stone River flowing parallel with
the army lines. Knowing that Crittenden's division faced
the weakest point of the Confederate line, while McCook
confronted the strongest, Rosecranz decided to pivot on the
latter, and wheel Crittenden forward, driving the enemy be-
fore him. Bragg, on the other hand, had arranged to beat
back McCook, and pivoting on Breckinridge, sweep the
Federals to the northward. Had both attacks been made
simultaneously, the two armies would have revolved round
a central point; but the Confederates were the first to move,

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THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOfAAC 985

and the Union right was outflanked and fell back. The
struggle was desperate, and there was hand to hand fighting
with the bayonet. But in less than an hour the Confederates
had won the ground at this point, and McCook's division
was cut to pieces. Three miles away, meanwhile, Rosecranz
was directing Crittenden, not knowing what had befallen.
The information he presently received did not convince him
of the full extent of the reverse, and he sent insufficient re-
enforcements, and orders for McCook to hold his ground.
But even Sheridan was now in full retreat. Rousseau, with
his reserve, stayed the backward movement for a time, and
then Rosecranz rode up, through the thick of the fire. He
formed his new line at right angles to the first one, answer-
ing to the wheel of the Confederates. His best men and best
generals were there, and his own example was an inspira-
tion. Against this line the Confederates dashed themselves
all day in vain. At nightfall, Rosecranz held his position,
and the two armies rested for. the night. Bragg had ex-
pected the Federals to retreat under cover of darkness, but
finding them standing fast in the morning, he resolved to
attack. Breckinridge was sent to take an enfilading Union
force on a hill and drive them on to the river; the hill was
taken after a bloody fight, but in pursuing them to the river
the Confederates ran into a trap, and were cut to pieces by
ambushed infantry, and a battery of artillery under Critten-
den. Bragg did not renew his attack, but prepared to fly ; and
before midnight he was gone, leaving twenty-five hundred
wounded in Murfreesboro'. In no battle of the war had there
been fiercer fighting than in this; and it was Rosecranz's
invincible determination not to be beaten that saved it.
"Bragg is a good dog," he had remarked, with a touch of
grim humor, during the engagement, "but Holdfast is a
better." Van Dorn, earlier in the year, had been finally
defeated by Curtis in a desperate battle at Pea Ridge in
northwestern Arkansas; and the tug of war was transferred
to other regions.
U.S —42 "Vol. III.

986 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The northern part of the Mississippi had been cleared,
but the part below Vicksburg and including it was still in
Confederate hands ; and when Stanton, in conversation with
Butler at Washington, had suddenly exclaimed, "Why can't
New Orleans be taken?" — the Massachusetts lawyer-general
had sententiously replied, "It can." In the spring a fleet of
forty-seven vessels under Captain Farragut, carrying several
thousand troops commanded by Butler, appeared off Forts
Jackson and St. Philip, defending the river approach, and
began to bombard them. Green boughs covered them, so
as to render them indistinguishable from the wooded banks
where they lay. The firing continued for six days, break-
ing distant windows by the concussion, and stunning fish in
the water, but not seriously injuring the forts. Farragut
became impatient, and taking counsel of his daring, resolved
to run the batteries. He protected his boats with chain cables
and sand bags, cut the cable which had been stretched across
the river above, and began the ascent, delivering and receiv-
ing a tremendous fire. Having passed the batteries, he had
next to dispose of the fleet of thirteen ships which was in
wait for him; he destroyed all but one, and kept on. On
rounding the bend where New Orleans came in sight, the
cotton bales along the levees were set on fire, with the ship-
ping, and the smoke and flame roared up and down the water
front for a distance of five miles, while drifting fire-rafts set
his own vessels ablaze. Butler, attacking the forts in their
rear, forced their surrender and occupied New Orleans, while
Farragut continued up stream to Baton Rouge and Natchez,
and still pushing upward, passed the batteries of Vicksburg,
and joined the fleet above. Butler was made military gov-
ernor of New Orleans, and his administration of it was one
of the picturesque features of the war. The inhabitants
did not love him; but he was an able and successful ad-
ministrator.

On the 8th of March of this eventful year a naval battle
took place in Hampton Roads which put an end to all the

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THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 987

navies of the past, and laid the basis of those of the future.
The experiment of protecting ships with railroad iron and
cables had already been tried several times during the war,
with good results, such armor being generally applied for
the occasion only; but the Confederates were the first to
construct an armored defense for a vessel upon anything like
scientific principles. When the Norfolk Navy Yard had
been abandoned, the steam frigate "Merrimac" had been
scuttled and sunk; but later, Norfolk again coming into their
possession, they raised her, and covered her with a super-
structure of iron plates, strong enough to resist ordinary
cannon-shot, and sloping like the roof of a house. An iron
beak was added in front, to enable her if necessary to ram
an enemy. The whole was covered with grease, so that
missiles might more readily slip aside from her metal scales.
This ugly and formidable contrivance was brought into the
Eoads on Saturday morning, and after demanding the sur-
render of the United States sloop-of-war "Cumberland,"
Captain Morris, and meeting with refusal, she opened fire.
Her broadside crashed through the/ 'Cumberland" at close
range, but the answering fire of the "Cumberland" re-
bounded from her armament like "hail from a roof of slate,"
as Longfellow describes it in his famous poem. The "Merri-
mac," not to be detained longer, rammed her antagonist,
and the "Cumberland" sank, with a final broadside as she
went under, and her flag still flying from the mast-head.

The United States frigate "Congress" was the next vic-
tim of this monster; her captain ran her ashore, but the
"Merrimac" swung across her stern and sent shot into her
till she surrendered, unable, like the "Cumberland," to
make any impression on that iron hide. The "Minnesota,"
another steam frigate, dropped down to help her consort,
but ran aground, and was exposed till sunset to the attacks
of the gunboats which had accompanied the "Merrimac,"
and to an occasional shot from the latter. At the approach
of night the Confederate champion steamed back to Nor-

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

folk, intending to resume her meal the next morning. The
battle had been watched by a crowd from on shore ; the day
had been clear, and the features of the affair could be plainly
seen ; but a strong current of air setting along the coast pre-
vented any sound being heard from the heavy guns ; though
in the other direction they were audible for over fifty miles.
The prospect for the North, at the end of this day, was
dark. An engine of war which could visit any part of the
coast and bombard any town with absolute impunity to itself
was a new thing in war, and might alter the entire aspect
thereof. But a man of genius had been at work in the
North for several months past, and the result of his labors
appeared in the very nick of time. The "Monitor" had been
launched at New York, and had been making a troublous
voyage thence to Hampton Roads ever since ; she was com-
manded by Lieutenant Worden, one of those brave men
whose bravery is not overcome by unprecedented conditions.
The vessel, to all appearance, was a flat raft of steel, rising
but a few inches above water ; her decks projected over the
lines of her hull like a sort of horizontal eaves, and were
heavily plated with metal. In the center of her deck uprose
a round turret, like a pill -box, which revolved by steam-
power, and carried two eleven-inch guns, which could thus
be directed toward any point of the compass. The vessel
was small, and as the men had to live below the water-line,
in their iron box, their discomfort, especially in a sea-way,
was intense. But the " Monitor" was not designed to fight
on the high seas, but for the defense of harbors ; nor was
she built for a pleasure-yacht, but for solid fighting. She
was, at that time, the only machine in the world capable of
resisting the "Merrimac." She was built by John Ericsson,
a Swede, who had lived in England from his twenty-third
to his thirty-sixth year, and in America since then ; he had
already gained distinction by applying the principle of the
screw to steam navigation, and by the invention of the ca-
loric engine; and he afterward invented the solar engine and

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 989

the torpedo-boat destroyer. But for his timely aid, the Civil
"War might have had another termination. "Worden was
happily selected to command the new creation in action.

The "Monitor" took her station near the stranded "Minne-
sota" ; and when, on the beautiful Sunday morning of March
9th, the "Merrimac" steamed back to her work, this little
thing came forth to meet her. She did not look formidable,
with only two guns and no visible hull ; but it soon appeared
that her two guns were as good as twenty, and her sunken
hull made it impossible to hit her effectively. The turret
was a difficult object to strike, and as it was plated with
eight inches of iron, the balls of the "Merrimac" produced
no impression on it when they struck. She was much
quicker in maneuvering than was her unwieldy foe; and
though in point of size and seeming power the Confederate
vessel was beyond comparison superior, in actual effect the
"Monitor" was the more formidable of the two. Her heavy
balls pounded the "Merrimac" until the latter found even
her armament insufficient ; she prevented her from attacking
the "Minnesota"; and the attempts of the "Merrimac" to
ram her were wholly ineffective, for the great iron beak slid
harmlessly over her steel deck. At length, therefore, the
defeated monster turned tail and steamed away, sending
back a parting shot which struck the pilot house or conning-
tower in which Worden was directing his fight, and ren-
dered him insensible and partly blinded him ; this being the
only casualty on board. The battle was never renewed.
The "Merrimac" was afterward blown up in Norfolk har-
bor; and the "Monitor" foundered in a heavy sea off Cape
Hatteras, while on her way to Beaufort. Sixty vessels of
her type were built during the war; and the modern ar-
mored battleship comprises some of her essential features,
with modifications which experience suggested.

While the contest for the possession of the Mississippi
and the western states had been going on with the advan-
tage on the Union side, there was in progress a stubborn

990 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

struggle in Virginia, in which the Federals aimed at Rich-
mond, and the Confederates, while defending their capital,
occasionally menaced Washington. Indeed, Washington was
a much more vulnerable point for the North than was Rich-
mond for the South ; the capture of the former would have
opened the way for an invasion of the North; whereas the
South could best be attacked along the Mississippi. Having
in view the relative strength and resources of the South and
North, it might have proved better strategy for the former
to abandon any attempt to push operations in the latter's
territory, and confine her whole strength to repelling the
fatal blows which Grant and the generals with him were
delivering at her vitals. But the fact remains that the best
leaders of the South, and her finest armies, were concen-
trated in Virginia during the entire war ; and it was there
that her chief successes were gained. These successes how-
ever did her no good, save in so far as they occasioned the
slaughter of tens of thousands of Union soldiers. But they
also cost the lives of an almost equal number of Southern
men; and the South could repair such losses far less easily
than could her antagonist. The battles fought by the Con-
federacy in Virginia were brilliant, and the strategy shown
by her generals was consummate, and superior in most cases
to that of the Northern leaders. But while Stonewall Jack-
son, Robert E. Lee, and the rest, were victorious in this or
that particular battle, the very life was gradually being
hammered out of the South; her money and her men were
being exhausted. She was like a skillful boxer who is slowly
worn down by the mere exertion of fighting a gladiator of
inferior activity and skill, but of indomitable strength and
endurance. The advantage on "points" was hers; but she
must finally succumb nevertheless.

Richmond might be approached in two ways; by march-
ing overland directly south from Washington; or by send-
ing troops by water to the Peninsula between the York and
James Rivers, and forcing the way up the Peninsula in a

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 991

northwesterly direction; the latter being the shorter and
apparently the easier route of the two. It was this route
which McClellan chose; but it left the other route to be
protected against Confederate attack, and it involved (as
McClellan found to his cost) many difficulties of its own.
Lee and Jackson outgeneraled the Union leaders again and
again, and Lincoln tried one after another with the same re-
sult of failure. It was not until Grant had captured Vicks-
burg and assumed the commandership in chief of all the
Union armies, that the tide turned. Grant himself came to
Virginia, and there, in a series of mighty battles, fought
Lee to a standstill. With Lee's surrender, the war was
practically at an end. But it was not until the South had
shown that, with men and money in sufficient quantity,
she would have been unconquerable.

The army of the Potomac was moved down the river
from Washington on transports and landed at Fortress Mon-
roe on the 4th of April, 1862, to the number of about one
hundred thousand. Yorktown was their first objective point,
on the southern bank of York River; it was occupied by
Magruder with twelve thousand men, five thousand of
whom were thrown out as an external defense; and such
was the ability with which a line over twelve miles long
was defended, that McClellan was kept at bay a month.
He sent to Washington for heavy siege guns, but before he
could open fire with them, Magruder, having accomplished
his purpose, withdrew upon Richmond. It was at this time
that Norfolk was abandoned, and the "Merrimac" blown
up. General Joseph E. Johnston was at that epoch in com-
mand of the Confederate armies in Virginia, and, in order to
guard his baggage train, he had left a strong force at Wil-
liamsburg, about the center of the Peninsula, which became
engaged with the Federal advance. General Joseph Hooker,
to whom the nickname of "Fighting Joe" was applied, led
the Union forces, and a savage battle took place which lasted
nine hours. McClellan was still behind at Yorktown, not

992 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

suspecting that an engagement would occur. There was no
connected handling of the Union soldiers, but they fought
as they thought best. Hooker distributed his skirmishers
among the trees and kept up a fire which temporarily-
silenced Fort Magruder; he was charged, but held his
ground. While he was fighting, another body of Union
soldiers under Smith was standing idle not far off, thirty-
thousand strong ; and it was not till evening that they be-
came engaged on their own account. Hooker, however, was
not to be entirely abandoned ; for General Kearney came up
from below, at the sound of firing, and was just in time to
support Hooker as he was beginning to fall back. Kearney
charged with the bayonet and drove the enemy back; but
night came on before the advantage could be followed up.
At the same time Hancock, then a young officer, found and
occupied some deserted redoubts on the right, and had a
sharp brush with the enemy ; McClellan arrived as the fight-
ing ceased, ordered the positions to be held, and prepared for
an attack the next day; but by the time he was ready, it was
found that the enemy had escaped. McClellan did not pur-
sue, but rested in Williamsburg. When he finally resumed
his march, he found no obstructions but muddy roads, and
kept on until Richmond was but eight miles distant. Tt
seemed ready to fall into his hands; but there were years
of time and hundreds of thousands of lives between him
and his quarry.

Nevertheless, Richmond was in a panic, and every one,
from Jefferson Davis down, feared their time was come; for
they did not yet know McClellan. In spite of urgings from
Washington, he would not move without re-enforcements;
and these could not be sent, because Stonewall Jackson was
threatening a descent on Washington the moment Macdowell
should stir. "Either attack, or give up the job," Lincoln
telegraphed; but McClellan would do neither. Meanwhile
rains had so swollen the little rivers amid which his army
lay that it was divided into two parts. Johnston was quick

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 993

to appreciate this weakness, and sallied forth with thirty
thousand against Casey with eighteen. The charge was
overwhelming, and the Federals slowly withdrew, though
Kearney delayed the retreat for a while. But after fight-
ing from noon till five o'clock, with constant losses and re-
verses, the day was saved at the last moment by General
Sumner, who came across a log bridge over the Chicka-
hominy with a battery of guns. The Confederate general
Johnston was wounded by a shell at the head of a charg-
ing column, and his followers fled. All the night the rain
poured down, as it pours nowhere but on the Peninsula, and
the Virginia mud was knee-deep. In the morning the Fed-
erals renewed the battle and drove the Confederates before
them; thus winning the battle of Fair Oaks after it had
been lost. Such changes of fortune were not uncommon in
the war.

For a whole month after this fight — when he might have
marched into Richmond without resistance — McClellan lay
supine in the mud, planning, but doing nothing. The in-
terval was improved by the Confederates to raise a large
army and devise a plan of campaign. The result was to
bewilder McClellan and create a panic in Washington to
offset that which had lately been felt in Richmond.

Stuart made a cavalry raid in McClellan's rear, between
him and Washington, destroying supplies and threatening
his communications by rail. Macdowell, with thirty thou-
sand men, who was marching to join McClellan, was also
hindered by this move. To further delay their junction,
Johnston ordered Jackson to threaten Washington by way
of the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson, re-enforced by Ewell,
chased Banks across the Potomac. With his fifteen thou-
sand men he paralyzed sixty thousand and created a com-
motion that was unprecedented ; never did the North so fear
actual invasion as at that juncture. The union of Macdowell
and McClellan was prevented, and Richmond saved for the
time being. McClellan conceived the idea of changing his

994 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

base from the York to the James River, thus obviating the
peril to which Jackson's operations had exposed him. The
same day that he had fixed upon to make this move, Lee,
who had taken charge of the active campaign, attacked the
Federal right at Mechanicsville. He was repulsed, but the
Federals fell back to Gaines Mill, and held the bridge across
the Chickahominy till night. By this time Lee had fath-
omed McClellan's purpose, and attempted to take advantage
of it. Magruder went round by a road that cut his line of
retreat, and struck him in the rear. But the Federals
showed the benefit of their long drilling, and held their
own steadily till night, when the retreat was resumed. As
the columns passed Frayser's Farm they were once more
assailed by Hill and Longstreet, but without effect. At
length they assembled on Malvern Hill, and here was fought
the last of the "Seven-Days' battles," on the 1st of July.

Malvern Hill is a high plateau, with the James River to
the south of it ; it is of oblong shape, about a mile and a half
in length, and has in front a concave form, with terraces
rising one above another ; the summit is bare of timber. It
slopes down from its height of less than a hunderd feet to
low meadows and wooded marshes, with streams traversing
them ; a road ascended it on the north. Weary with their
six days' tramp through woods and swamps, with the enemy
ever hanging fiercely on flank and rear, hither came the
troops of McClellan's Grand Army of the Potomac. They
planted sixty cannon on the slopes, and behind them were
ten thousand rifles. It was a position nearly impregnable ;
but Lee, believing that he had McClellan on the run, made
one of his few tactical mistakes, and determined to force him
to surrender. He did not reflect that a retreat conducted
with such order and steadiness showed that the morale of
the army was not broken, and that the men would fight
when they were allowed to do so.

McClellan was not present on Malvern Hill ; he was en-
sconced in one of the gunboats on the river; but Fitz John

THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE POTOMAC 995

Porter commanded the troops. He had not imagined that
Lee would venture to storm the hill, but from its summit he
saw the regiments forming and deploying. Here were the
Union troops to take revenge for all that they had suffered
since the movement began.

The conditions of the battle were of elemental simplicity.
The Confederates had to advance across half a mile of
swampy meadows, and ascend the hill. From the moment
they came in sight, they would be exposed to a withering
fire, which would more and more converge upon them as
they drew near; until, if they ever gained the slope, it was
almost impossible that any man would live to mount it.
That it could be captured, so long as the fire continued, was
an impossibility. Officers and men knew that they were
being sent to certain death ; but Lee and Jackson scrupled
not to send them. "My men will be annihilated: nothing
in the world can live there," said a colonel who received
from Jackson the order to advance. "I take care of my
wounded and bury my dead," was Jackson's reply — the
least manly utterance of his ever reported. Charge after
charge was hurled back without effort; the Confederates
never got near enough to cause a moment's anxiety. They
fell by thousands. At dark only they gave up the effort,
utterly beaten and disheartened.

Nothing now intervened between McClellan and Rich-
mond but the shattered remnants of a defeated, exhausted
and demoralized army. Lee had brought his whole strength
into this contest, and had none left now that it was over.
He was helpless, and he and all with him knew it. All
through that July day, in swampy ground, making terrific
exertions, his men had fought and died ; and for more than
a week previous they had struggled through sweltering
woods, in dust, in water, breathlessly pursuing a constantly
disappearing foe. The Confederacy, in that hour, was on
its knees ; McClellan had but to advance, and in two days
he could dictate terms of peace from Richmond.

996 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

"To have left our position would have endangered our
communications, and have removed us from the protection
of our gunboats," said the Little Napoleon; and he issued
orders to retreat. The whole army protested. Phil Kear-
ney expressed the general sentiment when he said, "I, Philip
Kearney, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against
this retreat. In full view of the responsibilities of such a
declaration, I say to you that such an order can be prompted
only by cowardice — or treason!" History is unable to re-
verse his verdict. The Peninsular campaign ended there,
and with it the reputation of McClellan. The problem of
this man's character and conduct has never been solved. No
officer in either army was more accomplished in the science
of war ; he had not his equal as a disciplinarian ; he seemed
to have high ambition, and self-possession. His six days'
retreat has been pronounced the finest work of its kind ever
done. But there was some strange deficiency in him. It is
hardly conceivable that he was a coward ; none who have
known him can think so. It is extravagant to suppose that
he was a traitor; such treason as that would imply, would
be unique. But his excuses for inaction all through the
Peninsular campaign were preposterous; and this final one
was an insult to human intelligence. The passionate words
of Phil Kearney remain in the memory, and it is to be feared
that they may sum up the verdict of posterity on McClellan,

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH

THROUGH THE VALLEY OE DEATH

'HAT remains of the story of the war will be
told briefly. The description of battles is not
the History of the United States. The annals
of courage in the field are fascinating, and
yet there is a certain monotony in them. The
conditions vary, there are changing combina-
tions, the character of generals is revealed, and traits of
individual prowess are developed ; but after all, the sum is
that men fight, and face death, they die, they are defeated,
they are victorious. Allowing for the difference of weapons,
the battles of the Greeks and Persians, of the Romans and
Carthaginians, of the Saxons and Normans, contain features
which constantly remind us of the fights of to-day. It makes
little essential difference that the range of the rifle is some
miles, while that of the broadsword is the length of the arm.
Men are killed in both cases.

The most deadly fighting, and many of the most striking
achievements and episodes of the war, were still to come.
Great reputations were to fall, and others yet greater were to
be made and confirmed. Owing chiefly to the genius and
marvelous vigilance of two men — Lee and Jackson — the
South was to enjoy a period of apparent success ; for a short
time they were to carry the war into their enemy's country;
but the success was technical and illusory, and the inevitable
reverse was the more bitter. So many hundred thousand
men must perish, and then must come the end. A civil war

(997)

998 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

is not like other wars; the armies are fighting in their own
country, and yield at last, not because they have lost one
battle or another, but because the country is exhausted.

After the fight at Malvern Hill, McClellan remained
where he was, feeding his army from ample stores, and
leaving the Confederates to recuperate their strength and
collect other men to supply the place of the 20,000 they had
lost in those seven days. The only way to conquer such an
army as Lee's was to keep pounding at it without a mo-
ment's cessation, as Grant afterward did. But McClellan,
under one pretext or another, allowed his foe every chance
to recover, and to forestall him ; whenever, by accident or
design, he had him at advantage, he turned away, and per-
mitted him to rise again. At the present juncture, his army
greatly outnumbered any that Lee could muster; bat he
waited until Lee was ready to march on Washington, as if
the matter were no concern of his. The depression through-
out the North was great ; and the South, despite its terrible
losses, was correspondingly elated.

Lincoln brought together the commands of McDowell,
Banks and Fremont, which had been unsuccessfully
opposing Jackson in the Shenandoah, and called Pope
from the west to command them. Fremont resigned
from jealousy, thus giving the measure and quality of his
patriotism. Pope assumed control with a want of tact
that set one's teeth on edge. "We have always seen our
enemies' backs in the West: I come from an army which
sought its enemy and beat him when found; whose policy
has been not defense but attack. ' ' This was not the way to
win the affection of his new soldiers. It made him enemies
among his fellow officers ; and there seems to be little doubt
that McClellan deliberately denied him re-enforcements
which he was in honor bound to supply, in order that he
might be defeated and unseated from his command. That
thousands of brave soldiers should die in order to gratify
McClellan's spleen, seems not to have disturbed the latter.

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 999

"Let Pope get himself out of his scrape," he wrote to
Lincoln. One marvels that Lincoln should have trusted him
yet again after such a revelation.

Pope's force was now called the Army of Virginia, to
distinguish it from the Army of the Potomac. McClellan
being deposed from the chief command, Lincoln appointed
Halleck, who had been in control over the Mississippi de-
partment, to succeed him. He could hardly have made a
worse selection ; Halleck had uniformly exerted his author-
ity to spoil the plans of better men. He now ordered the
Peninsula abandoned, counting all the money and lives
spent in it as worse than wasted. The army must attack
Kichmond from the north. McClellan wished to cross James
River and invest Richmond on the south, thereby stopping
Lee's re-enforcements, and the supplies of the city. This
was the plan which Grant carried out two years afterward.
But Halleck had Jackson on his nerves, and the Army of
the Potomac accordingly made ready to embark in the great
fleet of transports waiting at Fortress Monroe.

Lee was only waiting to know whether it was to the re-
enforcement of Pope or to McClellan that the army was to
be assigned ; for his plan was to strike either before the re-
enforcements could reach them. From John Mosby, who
had been a prisoner in the Federal lines, and who was after-
ward famous as a cavalry ranger, he learned that Pope was
the man to whom the advance on Richmond with the con-
solidated army was to be intrusted. He at once made ready
to throw his whole army into Gordonsville, where Jackson
was already confronting Pope. The railroad south to Rich-
mond and Charlottesville starts hence. He advised Jackson
in advance. Cedar Mountain is in the vicinity, with a deep
ravine on its northern side. Jackson stationed himself on
this hill, overlooking Banks' camp below. Banks had sent
to Sigel for re-enforcements, but Sigel had sent to ask the
way; and before an answer could be returned, the battle
had been fought and lost. Banks had 7,500 troops, Jack-

iooo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

son thrice as many. The latter's force was concealed by
the woods ; he slowly advanced under cover of artillery, to
which Banks vigorously replied. Banks, ignorant of Jack-
son's strength, at last resolved to attack him; and such was
the courage of his soldiers, that the attempt came near re-
sulting in a victory. Crawford outflanked them on the left,
and rolled their wing back on the center in confusion.
Meanwhile the Union center and left struck the enemy
heavily, and were also successful. Early alone withstood
them; but unless he was speedily supported, the battle
was lost.

Jackson came to the rescue. At first, he too was forced
back ; but when he rode to the front and led the men him-
self, they recovered, and drove the Federals in their turn.
But the latter made so strong a stand at the ravine that
Jackson paused, and night put an end to the battle. Jack-
son thought he must have Pope's whole army before him,
and he retreated to the Rapidan. The Federals had lost
nearly half of their whole number; but they had fought the
most brilliant battle against odds of the war thus far. Jack-
son, hampered by the very position which had seemed to give
him the advantage, had been able to bring but a part of his
huge force into action. The Federals suffered a technical
defeat in being driven from the field which they had won;
but such defeats are as good as most victories.

But the Confederates were soon to win more useful suc-
cesses. A raid to the rear of the Federals by Stuart resulted
in the capture of Pope's official papers, and very nearly of
the general himself ; and the papers showed the precise situ-
ation and plans of the Union army. Lee, in order to make
the crossing of the Rappahannock possible for his army, sent
Jackson by a detour to the Federal rear. Jackson set off
with thirty-five regiments down the Shenandoah Valley;
but Pope, though informed of this, did not imagine that he
was going to perform the reckless maneuver which had been
planned. Bearing to the right, Jackson kep+ rapidly on,

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH iooi

reached the village of Salem, passed through Thoroughfare
Gap, where Pope might easily have stopped his whole army
with a few regiments, and descended on Manassas Junction,
where were the stores for sixty thousand men. For an hour
or so Jackson allowed his hungry, thirsty and ragged sol-
diers to help themselves to what they wanted, except to the
whisky, which was poured on the ground. Then the march
was resumed, and the remainder of the stores burned.

But Jackson was in a most perilous position, and Pope
was soon awake to the facts. He made every preparation
except the one that he should have made — he did not send
a force to hold Thoroughfare Gap against Longstreet, who
was following in Jackson's footsteps. Longstreet marched
through without check; meanwhile Jackson chose the field
of Bull Run, on which he had won his nickname, as the best
adapted for the coming conflict. A part of Pope's command
came in contact with a vastly superior force of the enemy
concealed in Groveton Woods, and fought them till dark,
killing General Ewell. At night the Federals continued
their march in search of the very enemy with the bulk of
which they had been contending. Jackson was waiting for
Longstreet, and getting into the best position for the fray.
A more absurd situation than that of Pope could not be im-
agined. He was by this time in force ; but so wooded and
uneven was the country that he could not lay his hands on
his enemy, who was close at hand. And he knew that un-
less he could find him before he was re-enforced, the victory
would be at least doubtful. He did find him at last, and
the battle that was fought was one of the most desperate
of the war.

Jackson had the embankment of an unfinished railroad
in front of him. General Grover's division, on the Federal
right, charged this, sustained a terrible fire, came into hand
to hand conflict with the enemy, giving and taking the
bayonet, drove them back, received the fire of the second
line, drove that also back, and would have shattered the

ioo2 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

army had they been supported; but fresh troops came down
upon them, and they in turn retreated. Kearney meanwhile
was engaged at the other end of the line. He made charge
upon charge, and forced back the enemy, which was re-
enforced, and held its ground. Again he charged, with the
aid of Hatch; but now part of Longstreet's men, who had
arrived, came to the support of the Confederates, and the
Federals must retire. This ended the fighting for the day.
Pope fancied he had won, and so telegraphed to Washing-
ton. He was, in fact, already defeated; and the losses on
both sides were seven thousand men. The next morning
Jackson's and Longstreet's forces were united like the two
sides of a triangle; Pope, with blind confidence, attacked
Jackson. He imagined that warrior was retreating. The
charges of yesterday were repeated with even more deter-
mination. In one place the antagonists fought within ten
yards of each other for an hour, and when they had ex-
hausted their ammunition, continued the fight with stones.
But when the whole Federal force was concentrating its at-
tention on Jackson, who was getting beaten and calling for
help, Longstreet opened on the flank with his batteries.
Three times he shattered the Federal ranks, and thrice they
re-formed under fire; but then comes Longstreet's infantry
charge, and a whole fresh army throws itself against the
exhausted battalions. Pope was all but surrounded. He
threw a regiment of regulars on the hill where stood the
Henry House; and the Confederates could not dislodge
them. Night had fallen, with drizzly rain. Under cover
of the regulars the rest of the army retreated in good order,
having lost fourteen thousand men; the Confederates, ten
thousand. The second battle of Bull Run, as it is some-
times called, had been as different as possible in its charac-
ter from the first ; but the result in both cases had been the
same. Greater courage could not be shown than that which
marked the men in the ranks on both sides; there were no
green troops, no panics, here. But Pope lost, partly because

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1003

he was no match for his great antagonists — Lee had come
with Longstreet, and helped direct the battle — and partly
through the accidents of war. He afterward tried to lay
the blame of his defeat on Fitz John Porter, who was to
have attacked on his left, but who confined himself to
maneuvering. Porter was convicted by court-martial, but
finally cleared himself. He had been ordered to engage
unless opposed by Longstreet. Pope had not been aware
that Longstreet had arrived; but Porter saw him, and his
maneuvering was with a view of keeping him in check so
as not to interfere with Pope's attack. In this he had suc-
ceeded till the end of the day, when Longstreet attacked
from another position.

A few days later General Phil Kearney, during a heavy
skirmish at Chantilly on September 1st, rode into a squad of
the enemy, mistaking them for his own men, and was shot
before he could get away. His body was returned by Jack-
son with a military escort; for he was one of the most gal-
lant soldiers of the war.

Washington was now in a dangerous position. Lee
crossed the Potomac and advanced into Maryland, which
he hoped to win over to the Confederacy. McClellan, on
the failure of Pope, whom he should have supported, had
been tried once more with the supreme command. He re-
organized the army and followed Lee. The latter had sent
Jackson on a raid to Harper's Ferry, where Colonel Miles
with eleven thousand men was stationed. Jackson stormed
the heights and forced Miles to surrender; but McClellan
had learned of his action, and that Lee's army had been
depleted by Jackson's twenty-five thousand men, and he
hastened on to strike Lee before Jackson could get back.
He overtook his rear at South Mountain, and, after a short
engagement, drove it before him and entered the valley be-
yond. Lee fell back to the other side of Antietam Creek.
Had McClellan attacked at once he would have been victori-
ous without difficulty ; but he delayed for a day, for no other

1004 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

reason, so far as one can conjecture, than to allow Jackson
time to get up. Jackson came, accordingly; but even with
him, Lee had but forty thousand men — half the number
under McClellan. There was a bridge across the creek;
McClellan ordered Burnside, on his left, to cross this bridge
and attack the enemy's left, as soon as Hooker's charge on
the enemy's right should have been successful. But Hook-
er's attack on Jackson had the effect of nearly exterminat-
ing both parties ; they were repeatedly re-enforced, and the
slaughter continued with no result. Burnside crossed the
bridge at one o'clock, but was repulsed by Hill. The next
day McClellan did nothing; and suffered Lee to escape
under cover of the following night. The battle was inde-
cisive, with the honors on the Confederate side; but it
stopped Lee's invasion, and he was compelled to recross
the Potomac. It was not until six weeks after the battle
that the army of the Potomac followed Lee; and then Mc-
Clellan's pursuit was so deliberate that Lincoln and Stanton
were finally disillusioned, and gave him his well-deserved
dismissal. A sterner sentence would not have been unjust,
in such circumstances.

Burnside was chosen to supersede McClellan; but the
army he was called upon to command was now one hun-
dred and fifty thousand strong, and he declared himself
incompetent for the task. But Lincoln insisted, and he
acquiesced. He had none of the faults of McClellan; he
was only too brave and rash. He made his plan, and did
his best to carry it out ; and in the single battle of Freder-
icksburg he lost twelve thousand men, half of whom fell in
the attempt to take a single position, where the Confederates
were ensconced behind a solid stone wall four feet in height.
Seldom has such a massacre been seen in war.

McClellan had taken his dismissal stoically, and Lee,
with a certain humorous appreciation. His saying was, that
he regretted the parting with the general, "because we un-
derstood each other so well. I fear if they keep on chang-

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1005

ing generals, I may get one that I don't understand." He
proved that he understood Burnside well enough ; and when
Grant came, he probably understood him also; but Grant
could beat him.

Burnside 's plan was simply to cross the Rappahannock,
with a feint at Gordonsville, and advance on Richmond.
Pontoons were sent to take the army across. The Confed-
erates were strongly intrenched on the heights on the south
bank of the river. There was difficulty in laying the pon-
toons, owing to sharpshooters' fire from the houses in Fred-
ericksburg; but volunteers went over in boats and drove
the enemy out. The bridge being then completed, the army
crossed, and was gathered about the town. Below, General
Franklin had gone over with fifty thousand men. The total
intrenched force of the Confederates was eighty thousand.
It was the 13th of December, and a thick fog lay over the
valley.

Jackson commanded the right wing of the enemy, and
Hunter was ordered to attack him with his whole force.
Instead of doing this, he sent only Meade's corps, which
charged up the hill, and broke through the line, but, being
unsupported, was forced to give way, and thus the only
chance of winning the battle was lost; for had this flank
been turned in force, it would have enabled the front and
left attack to prevail. But the battle raged furiously on the
slopes of Marye's Heights, where the stone wall crowned
the hill. Upon the ascent was directed, by the defenders, a
converging fire, somewhat like that which had mowed down
the Confederates at Malvern Hill. The Union men ad-
vanced against it with the same bravery, and were slaugh-
tered in the same way, only in much greater numbers. As
then, too, the slaughter was wholly useless: there was no
chance of taking the position. French and Hancock's corps
were the first to be sent up the hill, and Meagher's Irish
brigade distinguished itself where all were heroes. Hooker,
against his protestations, was ordered to renew the struggle,

1006 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

and he sent General Humphrey's division to destruction.
Seventeen hundred men fell in fifteen minutes. Burnside,
obstinate even then, arranged to send in his own corps the
next morning ; but General Sumner persuaded him against
it. At night the Union troops retired across the river, and
another attempt on Richmond had disastrously failed. The
armies went into winter quarters, and all was quiet on the
Potomac.

In September of this year, Lincoln had, as a war meas-
ure, issued a proclamation declaring that on and after Jan-
uary 1st, 1863, all slaves in seceded states would be declared
forever free. It was a measure which had long been in con-
templation, but had been delayed owing to doubt as to its
effect. Many thought it would create or confirm a party in
the North opposed to the war, and that it would inflame and
render implacable the resistance of the South. Lincoln had
hesitated long, for the responsibility was his. He had made
the first draft of the document in July, but had thought it
prudent to wait till a decided Union victory was won; but
there had followed a series of reverses. Finally came the
battle of Antietam. "I had made a solemn vow to God,"
said Lincoln, "that if Lee was driven back from Maryland,
I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to
the slaves." The Proclamation did not affect slaves in those
slave states which had not seceded, such as Missouri and
Kentucky. It proved to be as wise a measure as it was a
bold one; it led to no murderous slave insurrections, as had
been apprehended; and as the Confederates were already
doing their best, it added nothing to the force of their re-
sistance. But two hundred thousand negroes enlisted in
consequence of it.

Burnside was succeeded by Hooker, to whom Lincoln
sent a warning letter of rebuke and advice. But no move-
ments were made till May ; and meanwhile, events had been
happening in the West. Grant renewed his attack on Vicks-
burg, his aim being to get his army and gunboats below the

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1007

town. There was a bend of the river opposite Vicksburg,
and the suggestion was made to dig a canal across the neck
of the curve, as at Island No. 10, and turn the river into a
new channel. Other ways of flanking the great river were
proposed, and some of them were attempted; but none of
them answered. Finally, Grant resolved to march down
the west bank, in spite of the many topographical difficul-
ties, letting the gunboats run the batteries, extending eight
miles; which they successfully did about the middle of
April. Meanwhile a corduroy road had been made through
the swampy land, and the army, meeting the fleet below,
was ferried over to Bruinsburg on the eastern shore. Grant
now had two hundred miles to march, northward, overcom-
ing whatever resistance he might meet by the way. It took
him a little over two weeks to do this, and on the road he
fought and won four battles. The first was with the ad-
vance guard of Pemberton's army at Port Gibson; then he
threw himself between Pemberton and Joe Johnston, who
was coming to Pemberton's assistance; defeated Johnston
on May 14th, and beat Pemberton in two more battles at
Champion Hills and at Black River. Thus he compelled
him to take refuge in Vicksburg, where he designed to cap-
ture him along with the rest of the garrison.

After the failure of Sherman's Yazoo River expedition
to aid Grant in the earlier movement against Vicksburg, he
had been superseded by McClernand. But when Grant was
given control of the western army, he gave Sherman a corps,
and they made the campaign together. On the 18th of May
he had a conference with Sherman, in whom he always re-
posed great confidence, and they arranged their plans for
investing Vicksburg.

Johnston had advised Pemberton not to stand a siege in
Vicksburg, inasmuch as he would ultimately be forced to
surrender; and told him his best plan would be to evacuate
while it was still possible, and take his men north. But
Pemberton replied that he considered Vicksburg the most

1008 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

important point in the Confederacy, and wonld hold it at
all hazards.

Grant believed that the garrison was demoralized by the
beating he had given Pemberton in the field, and could be
captured by assault. The bridge had been destroyed, but
he built others, and Sherman sent a body of regulars under
Colonel "Washington to take a battery. The men reached
the battery, but Washington was killed, and they retreated.
But Johnston was in Grant's rear, and it was necessary to
make another effort. On the 22d, accordingly, supported by
the fire of gunboats and batteries, another assault in force
was delivered, and the flag was planted on the bastion; but
it was found impossible to hold the position. All along the
line of attack there were the same gallant charges, and the
same results. McClernand sent a report saying he was suc-
cessful, which caused Grant to order another general assault ;
but the report turned out to have been erroneous, and at the
end of the day the repulse was complete. Vicksburg could
not be taken by assault. It must be reduced by regular
siege.

The siege continued for nearly seven weeks; but Grant's
restless energy would not allow of his waiting for starvation
to do its work; he laid out elaborate approaches and diago-
nals; and a continual fusillade of the enemy's ramparts was
maintained. The practice of the Union sharpshooters be-
came almost miraculous. No one could put his head above
the walls with safety. Mines were dug under the works,
and countermines were made by the garrison. In a word,
every device which American ingenuity could suggest was
employed on both sides. At evening there would sometimes
be an informal truce, when the antagonists would chat and
jest together, and exchange tobacco for hard-tack. As time
went on, starvation began within the walls. Rats were sold
in the butcher-shops. Bombs falling continually in the
streets caused constant deaths and terror; and the inhabi-
tants burrowed underground for safety. Finally the sol-

MAJ.-GEN. T. J. JACKSON, C.S.A.

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THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1009

diers told Pemberton that unless they were fed they would
mutiny. Pemberton consulted his council as to the chances
of cutting their way out, and was told that the condition of
the men made it impossible. He then resolved to surren-
der ; and on the 3d of July a white flag appeared above the
works. Pemberton and Grant met, and Grant announced
that his terms were unconditional surrender ; and Pember-
ton, after a show of resistance, submitted. The surrender
was on the 4th of July. It was the most important victory
of the war until the battle of Gettysburg; forty-six thou-
sand prisoners went with it, sixty thousand stand of arms,
and two hundred and sixty cannon. The total Federal loss
was under ten thousand men. When Banks, who was be-
sieging Port Hudson, heard the news, he caused a salute to
be fired; and the garrison, upon learning the reason of it,
surrendered likewise. The Mississippi was now open, and
Grant was recognized as the great soldier of the army.

Rosecranz began in June a series of maneuvers which
resulted in driving Bragg into Chattanooga, where he meant
to shut him up as Grant had shut up Pemberton ; but Bragg
was not to be so caught, and got out; Rosecranz pursued
him, and his line became so extended that Bragg, being re-
enforced, turned to strike it. It was rapidly drawn together,
and at Chickamauga another great battle was fought.

It lasted two days, the leading feature being the tremen-
dous and sustained attack which Bragg directed against the
Union left under Thomas. Rosecranz kept the latter sup-
ported, but on the second day, removing a brigade too hast-
ily, Bragg saw the opening and pushed in on the right,
breaking up the Union formation, and driving the right and
center back on Chattanooga, whence Rosecranz telegraphed
his defeat. But Thomas stood like a rock and was not dis-
lodged by the assaults of Bragg's whole army. The attack
on him was given up at sunset, and he returned to Chatta-
nooga during the night, bringing five hundred prisoners
with him. The Federals intrenched themselves ; Rosecranz
U.S.— 43 Vol. III.

ioio HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was superseded by Thomas; and Grant made preparations
to relieve him.

The boot now began to get on the other leg. Grant,
who had gone down to New Orleans, came up in haste;
Hooker was detached from the army on the Potomac, and
Sherman forced his way through from the Mississippi. Al-
together there were eighty thousand men on the ground,
besides the twenty-five thousand with Thomas already in-
side the Chattanooga line. Davis, utterly misapprehending
Bragg' s danger, had ordered fifteen thousand of his men
sent away to engage Burnside at Knoxville two weeks
before.

Chattanooga is surrounded with hills. On the 23d of
November Thomas's troops came out as if on review, and
charged straight for an elevation called Orchard Knob, fac-
ing the Confederate position, captured it after a brief strug-
gle, and occupied the batteries upon it. The Confederates
lay in a line twelve miles long between Missionary Ridge
and Lookout Mountain, the latter an abrupt height rising
two thousand feet. Earthworks ranged along the interven-
ing valley. Grant's strategy assigned to Hooker the task
of attacking Lookout Mountain, and to Sherman the Ridge;
Bragg would deplete his center to strengthen these points,
upon which Grant would direct his main strength upon it.
Under cover of the early morning mist of the 23d, Sherman
began his attack upon the Ridge, and gained a footing on
its northern end. Hooker not only assaulted the mountain,
but, warming to his work, performed the almost incredible
feat of fighting his way to the dizzy summit, where he un-
furled the Stars and Stripes, and his camp fires were seen
sparkling in the sky. In this exploit, as in other episodes
of the battle, the men in the ranks took matters into their
own hands, and outdid the orders and expectations of their
commanders. The air of the hills seemed to inspire them,
and they achieved things which seemed impossible.

Sherman, after establishing himself on the northern end

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THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH ion

of the ridge, waited for the morrow to renew his attack. But
his progress the next day was unsatisfactory, and it became
evident that he would need help. Grant had sent Hooker
to threaten Bragg's rear, but a swollen river and a broken
bridge embarrassed him, so that the desired diversion was
not accomplished. Grant, standing on Orchard Knob, or-
dered twenty thousand men to take a line of earthworks
along the base of the ridge. Not only was the order carried
out, but the men kept on up the ridge, at first leading their
own officers. The latter, however, speedily leaped to the
front; and at the same time Grant, perceiving that at last
the time was come, directed that a charge be made along
the entire line of battle. No finer spectacle could be imag-
ined ; the setting sun flung the shadow of Lookout Mountain
far across the plain, but sparkled on the arms of the advanc-
ing soldiers; they were met by a fierce fire to which they
did not reply, but continued to ascend the rugged steep, each
man climbing as best he might, following the standards,
which waved beyond; they rolled up the crest like a long
wave of the sea, and overtopped it. Down sank the sun,
and with it the hopes of the Confederate army; they re-
treated, and their own guns turned upon them made havoc
in their crowding multitudes. The great battle of Chatta-
nooga put eastern Tennessee in the power of the Federals,
and removed the defenses of the eastern states, Georgia,
Alabama, and the Carolinas. Bragg had lost the confi-
dence of his soldiers, and resigned. Burnside, who had been
transferred from the Potomac to the Ohio, had been checked
in his southward march by Longstreet's ragged but heroic
corps; but now Sherman, set free by the victory at Chat-
tanooga, raised the siege of Knoxville. Sherman's troops
had, since the 27th of September, marched five hundred
and twenty miles and fought at Chattanooga; they were in
training for their historic march through Georgia to the sea.
But before that decisive event, Lee and Jackson were
once more to win, against all probabilities, in their conflict

1012 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

with the Army of the Potomac under its new leader, Hooker.
Hooker had assumed the command at a time when the spirit
of the army seemed broken, and desertions were numerous.
He reorganized it, and made it, as he thought, the finest in
the world. Possibly it was; but it had not yet got its fitting
leader. Hooker's plan was good: he would feint at Fred-
ericksburg with Sedgwick, while he himself, with the bulk
of the army, crossed above Chancellorsville and attacked
the Confederates' rear. He had one hundred and twenty
thousand men, and the withdrawal of two divisions under
Longstreet to the James had diminished Lee's strength to
about fifty thousand.

Hooker reached his strategical position without mishap,
and fancied he had Lee at his mercy. He was in communi-
cation with Sedgwick by way of Bank's Ford; and had he
advanced it is difficult to see how he could have failed. But
at the critical moment he fell back from the open plains into
the Wilderness — a thick and tangled jungle, unsuitable for
the movements of either cavalry or artillery. Lee had mean-
while turned his army so as to face Hooker, and then, de-
taching Jackson to make a fifteen-mile detour with twenty
thousand men to fall on Hooker's rear, he attacked in front.
The first part of Jackson's movement was toward the south,
and Sickles, seeing one of the flanking regiments, jumped to
the conclusion that the whole Confederate army was in re-
treat to Richmond; he captured the regiment, but Jackson
kept on, swung to the right; passed behind the Federals,
and, rushing suddenly through the thickets, surprised them
at supper. There was a wild stampede, only checked by
Keenan's devoted charge, which allowed Pleasanton time
to get his artillery in position. It was while Jackson was
rallying his men from the backward movement to which
Pleasanton had forced them, that he was hit by his own
men, who mistook his reconnoitering party for the enemy.
He died a week later; and those last words of his — "Let us
cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees" —

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1013

are peculiarly happy, as showing that amid all the shocks
of war, in which he had ever borne a leading part, the heart
of the great soldier was at peace. His loss was irreparable
to the Southern cause, and was an omen of the end.

Hill, succeeding Jackson, was also wounded, and the
command devolved upon the picturesque cavalier, Stuart;
Hooker altered his formation during the night; his head-
quarters were at Chancellorsville, and his two flanks on the
river, his line thus forming a sharp curve. Stuart seized
Hazel Grove, a small hill opposite the center, and Sickles and
Slocum had to meet the whole force of the Confederate at-
tack; five charges were repulsed; but Hooker was stunned
by a cannon ball which struck the pillar of the house against
which he leaned ; Lee effected his junction with Stuart, and
the day was lost for Hooker's invincible army.

But while this was going on, Sedgwick had been success-
ful in his attack on Fredericksburg and was marching against
Lee from behind. Lee turned like a panther, drove Sedg-
wick back across the Rappahannock, and was back before
Hooker had realized his opportunity. During the night the
latter moved his army back to its former position on the
Washington side of the Rappahannock; and seventeen thou-
sand men had been lost with no gain to show for it — except
the death of Jackson and thirteen thousand men ; but these
were not due to Hooker's strategy. He had been a mere
bewildered monster in Lee's hands, and the losses he had
inflicted were due chiefly to his blind kickings and strag-
glings to escape. Strange was the destiny of the Army of
the Potomac; but its hour came at last.

Lee, who had been so brilliant in defense, was now to
prove, for the second and last time, what he could do in at-
tack. His advance into Pennsylvania was well planned, but
he missed the help of Jackson, who, at Cemetery Ridge,
might have turned the fortunes of the invasion by one of his
inimitable maneuvers. On the 3d of June Lee marched up
the Valley of the Shenandoah toward Chambersburg, the

1014 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Union army following in the same direction, but on the
other or eastern side of the Blue Ridge. Stuart's cavalry
held the passes, and prevented the Federals from knowing
what was going on on the western side. Lee's army was
the best yet collected by the Confederacy; he lived upon the
country as he went forward, but forbore to plunder property.
Hooker having resigned, Meade succeeded him. After cross-
ing the Potomac, the two armies began to feel each other;
Lee, facing east, was coming from the west of the town of
Gettysburg, and Meade was taking his position on Cemetery
Ridge, at the south. Lee was not then looking for a general
engagement, but wished to distract Meade from threatening
his communications. Neither did Meade contemplate a de-
cisive battle ; but his cavalry under Buf ord, put forward to
veil his march to Pipe Creek, where he proposed to fight,
came in contact with Lee's advance guard on the 1st of
July. The valiant General Reynolds was killed here while
making a reconnaissance ; the Federals were forced back and
suffered losses in the town; but night came on, and during
the dark hours the armies on both sides came up, and were
marshaled by moonlight. There were, on each side, about
eighty thousand men.

The real battle began on the afternoon of July 2d.
Sickles, too far in advance of the main body, was out-
flanked and compelled to retire to Cemetery Ridge, where
he stood. The range of hills of which Cemetery Ridge is a
part has the general form of a hook ; the shaft of the hook
runs north and south ; it bends over toward the east ; Ceme-
tery Ridge is at the bend; Culp's Hill at the barb; Little
Bound Top and Round Top are at the southern end of the
shaft. The entire chain is south of Gettysburg town. After
forcing back Sickles, Longstreet, who had driven him, was
opposed by Warren with Vincent and Weed, and prevented
from following up his advantage; and the position of
Sickles, though he had retreated, was stronger than at
first; while Ewell of the Confederates, who had in the

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1015

meanwhile captured Culp's Hill, was compelled to evacu-
ate it the next morning. The day had gone against the
Federals, but they were now for the first time in a favor-
able position to fight.

At one o'clock on July 3d Lee began, and for two hours
maintained, a cannonade of unprecedented fury on Cemetery
Ridge. Everything was torn to pieces ; the Union guns could
not reply effectively, and their fire ceased. At three o'clock
eighteen thousand Confederates, in a double line two miles
in length, preceded by skirmishers, emerged from the woods
and charged. At a distance of four hundred yards the Union
artillery got to work upon it ; but they only quickened their
advance. Now they were within range of the infantry fire ;
even this they braved, and with Pickett leading them they
rushed up the slope. They carried the first Union line, and
placed their flag upon it ; but behind it was another and a
stronger line. From this opened a terrific fire, striking the
Confederates full in the face. It was irresistible. Not a
tenth, not a quarter, nor a half of the Confederates were
cut down; but three-fourths of the attacking columns were
destroyed. It was the end of the charge, the end of the
battle, and for practical purposes the end of the war. The
invasion was over. Lee had lost thirty-six thousand men.
Altogether, his two attempts to invade the North had dimin-
ished the force of the South by ninety thousand of the best
troops in the world. Each had lasted about two weeks.
The game might have been worth the candle, but there was
not candle enough for the game. A campaign, at that rate,
would cost two million men a year. Meade had lost twenty-
three thousand men ; but they had saved the Union.

Meade allowed Lee to retreat slowly across the Potomac.
Two or three months afterward, Lee made a rapid dash
across the Rapidan in the hope of getting round Meade's
right flank ; but Meade eluded him, and Lee too rashly pur-
suing his retreat, was suddenly attacked by Warren, losing
nearly all of Early's command. At the end of November

1016 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Meade in turn crossed the river, intending to catch Lee's
army in separate parts; but Lee brought it together and
fortified it so strongly that Meade gave up his purpose, and
the campaign of 1863 was over. 1864 was to be the year of
Grant, and the beginning of the end.

There had, however, been one incident of the campaign
which deserves mention for more than one reason. A num-
ber of monitors had been building since the famous fight in
Hampton Roads, and a fleet of them were now placed under
the command of Admiral Dupont and taken to the harbor of
Charleston. Undue confidence was felt in the ability of the
armor to withstand any punishment; but it was presently
apparent that it had its limits. Obstructions had been placed
in the channel by the Confederates, in such a position that,
while the fleet was detained by them, the concentrated fire
of three hundred guns could be poured upon them. The
aim of the gunners was good, and the vessels were pelted
as by a hailstorm of iron; the " Keokuk," struck nearly a
hundred times, was sunk, and the rest of the fleet more or
less maimed. Three months later, Gillmore renewed the
attack by land. Fort Wagner had been erected on the
north end of a sandy spit called Morris's Island. It had
resisted one assault; but on the night of July 18th a force
of several thousand men under General Strong attempted
it again. With these troops was the Fifty-fourth regiment,
composed of negroes. Shaw was its colonel, and among its
officers was young Lieutenant Higginson — the former known
to be affiliated with the abolition party, and the more hated
by the Southerners. This was perhaps the only battle of the
war in which the animosity felt against the Northern forces
by the Southern soldiers was inflamed by a sort of personal
venom. That they should be called on to fight against their
cwn former slaves, arrayed against them by their white ene-
mies, was regarded as a wanton insult. On the other hand,
the North was in great doubt as to whether these negroes,
brought up to regard themselves as inferior beings, could

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1017

be relied on in battle. The result was to prove that a man
may be a dauntless soldier, though black, and with a life-
time of slavery behind him. Gallantly led, these men, with
the others, crossed the half mile of open sand which was
swept by the Confederate fire, and mounted the walls of
the fort. The advantage could not be held; Shaw was
killed; in a few minutes Lieutenant Higginson found him-
self the ranking officer of the remnant of the regiment.
Twelve hundred Federals were killed or wounded ; among
the latter a youth named Robley Evans, long afterward
famous as "Fighting Bob." The Confederate loss was less
than a twelfth that of their assailants. The result was in
a measure satisfactory to both sides ; the Federals, though
utterly defeated, had proved the worth of the negro; the
South had wreaked its vengeance on the latter, but was
forced to concede his bravery. An ungenerous resentment
marred the conduct of the victors ; in burying the negroes,
they flung into the same common pit the body of their gal-
lant leader. The enmity which pursues its object beyond
death is unworthy of a civilized people. The survivors of
the Fifty-fourth were led back by Higginson. A siege was
begun and the fort was bombarded till it was untenable, and
the garrison escaped a last assault only by evacuating the
place during the night. Sumter was hammered into ruins,
but an assault upon it failed. The "Swamp Angel," an
eight-inch Parrot gun, threw huge shells into the city of
Charleston ; but all efforts to capture the city failed.

Both nations were already feeling the terrible strain of
the war ; conscription at the North had reached men of forty-
five years of age, and in the South it finally included the en-
tire male population. Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves,
and employment of them against their masters, was severely
criticised at the North as well as denounced at the South.
Draft riots broke out in New York, and a thousand of the
mob were slain before order was re-established. But be-
neath all surface disturbances the deep purpose to urge the

1018 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

conflict to the end remained. Lincoln rose to the full stature
of his greatness, and took his place beside Washington as
the champion of his country under conditions even more ap-
palling than those which Washington had met. On the
19th of November he made the speech at Gettysburg, on
the occasion of the dedication of the cemetery there, which
still remains the most memorable utterance of the war, and
embodies the highest thought that any war undertaken for
righteous causes can inspire. "We cannot consecrate this
hallowed ground," said he. "The brave men, living and
dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above
our power to add or detract. The world will but little note,
nor long remember, what we say here ; but it can never for-
get what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to
dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work which they so
nobly advanced; to consecrate ourselves to the great task
remaining, and to gather from the graves of these honored
dead increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
their lives. Here let us resolve that they shall not have
died in vain ; that this nation shall, under God, have a new
birth of freedom ; and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people shall not perish forever from the
earth." Only a mind and heart of the very highest quality
could have given this idea an expression so without flaw.
The words take their place by an inevitable law of nature,
like sea and sky and mountains. Lincoln had always been
a man of great elements ; but he was now arrived at almost
the loftiest stage of human development. The sublimity of
patriotism cannot further go ; and the leader of a people in
battle cannot, while the battle continues, mount above pa-
triotism. In a calmer hour Lincoln might have spoken of
the heroes who had fought against the North on that day,
whose merit was no whit less than theirs; and we know
that his vast magnanimity would have cordially included
them. But mortal man lives in time, and according to the
time must he act and speak. It is rather marvelous that

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1019

•

Lincoln, speaking as he did at a moment when the feeling
on both sides of the struggle was at its bitterest, let fall no
word which should still further inflame it. The rude boat-
man and rail-splitter of Illinois had risen to the compass of
the mightiest whom God has made.

Passing over minor episodes, including the harrowing
annals of Libby Prison, we come to the military chieftain-
ship of Grant in 1864. Sherman and Johnston, two masters
of strategy, maneuvered against each other in Tennessee and
Georgia. Sherman had the larger number of troops, but
Johnston fairly matched him until Davis, failing to com-
prehend his merits, superseded him with Hood. He thrice
attacked Sherman on his way to Atlanta, but was each time
repulsed ; Sherman moved his army to the rear of Atlanta,
where Hood was intrenched, and when the latter sent
Hardee to protect his communications Sherman threw his
men between him and the city; Hardee retreated, and
Hood evacuated, escaping capture. But Atlanta and
Georgia were severed from the rest of the Confederacy.
In the four months' campaign the two armies had lost
seventy thousand men. Finally Hood collected his force
and threatened Sherman's line of supplies from Nashville.
Sherman, after chasing him into northern Alabama, left
Thomas to meet his advance in Nashville, and turned to
march seaward through Georgia with sixty thousand men.
Kilpatrick's cavalry guarded against surprise ; the army de-
stroyed the lines of railway between which it journeyed on
its long tramp of three hundred miles. It subsisted on the
country, having entirely cast loose from its base. Leaving
a wake of desolation sixty miles wide behind it, it headed for
Savannah, having by a feint toward Augusta induced the
force of old men and boys, who alone remained to defend
the state, to gather there. For a month the North had no
news of the army, and the South added to the uneasiness
by circulating reports of its destruction. But by the middle

1020 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

•

of December Sherman sent news of his safe arrival at Sa-
vannah, whose garrison evacuated the town without a con-
test. With a loss of but five hundred men, Sherman had
destroyed a hundred million dollars' worth of property and
subdivided the Confederacy. This, with Savannah and
twenty-five thousand bales of cotton, was his Christmas
present to the North.

Meanwhile Thomas, at Nashville, was attacked by Hood,
whose courage only needed some discretion to be perfect.
He pushed back Schofield and Stanley, sent out to delay
him, but at the cost of a loss nearly twice as great as theirs.
After some delay Thomas sallied forth to attack him. He
feinted at his right and drove back his left on the 15th of
December; the next morning he charged along the whole
line, and Hood's army, after a fierce resistance, broke into
hopeless flight. Forrest with his cavalry gave some protec-
tion to the retreat; but the pursuit was not slackened, and
under its effects Hood's entire army disappeared and was
never again assembled. Such an event had never before
occurred.

Grant's campaign before Richmond, which now began,
was a record of slaughter which one is averse from need-
lessly recapitulating. It was based upon Grant's determi-
nation to conquer this last of the Southern armies by exter-
minating it. The war thus far had showed that whichever
of the antagonists was in an intrenched position generally
defeated the attacking party, even when superior in num-
bers. Exceptions there had been, but such was the usual
result. Lee had fewer troops than Grant, but in defending
Richmond he was uniformly behind fortifications, which
long practice had enabled his soldiers to construct in a mar-
vclously short time. These Grant was forced to assail ; his
losses were fearful and often much greater than his enemy's;
but so many thousand Southern soldiers fell on each occa-
sion, and their places could not be filled. In marching to

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PUBLIC LIBRARY

AStO", Lp«OX AND
T|i_D N FOUNDATIONS.

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH I02i

turn Lee's flank Grant had to go the longer distances ; Lee,
moving on the inside, and divining or being informed of his
intention, was always beforehand, prepared for an assault.
At point after point of a great circle round Richmond Grant
resolutely pushed against the defense ; from the north to the
south he moved, and was finally besieging Petersburg. The
earlier battles were fought in the Wilderness, which had
already been fatal to the Union armies ; it was blind fight-
ing, in which death came from unseen sources ; the tangled
woods dripped with blood and were choked with corpses;
thsy caught fire, and the wounded were roasted to death;
the trees were cut down by the flying bullets ; scenes were
enacted surpassing in sustained horror anything known in
war. Staggering from the fearful punishment, but still
fighting coolly and fiercely, Lee faced his terrible opponent
in these last rounds of the mighty struggle, and did all that
man could, and almost more than man could be believed
capable of, to destroy him as he was being destroyed. The
losses were now numbered by the tens of thousands; human
life seemed to have lost its value. Only an invincible soul
could have endured to continue, as Grant did, so awful a
conflict. "I shall fight it out on this line if it takes all sum-
mer," said he; but he fought it out on many fines, and still
the heroism of the defenders kept him from his object. The
silent power of this man, conscious that the refinements of
strategy were here but of small avail, and able to steadily
inflict wholesale slaughter on his own men in order to wear
down his enemy, is one of the most impressive spectacles
ever seen. He had thought it out during the earlier years
of the war ; he had made up his mind what to do, and now
that the time was come, and the men, he unfalteringly did
it. The maneuvers were for the most part of the simplest
sort; Richmond was the goal; Grant edged round further
and further, Lee following him on the shorter line ; now and
then there would be a swift countermarch, a cavalry dash, a
turning back on Washington to deliver and parry an attack;

1022 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

but the main theme of the campaign was to press Lee back
upon Richmond and there annihilate him. It is customary,
comparing these two great generals, to give Lee the higher
praise as a soldier of military genius ; and surely he failed in
no particular. But the opportunity for genius was not present ;
his defense admitted of no latitude of movement or choice;
he must parry blows, or evade them, or distract attention
by this or that desperate demonstration. So far as strategy
was concerned, he had much the easier part to play ; it was
for Grant to take the initiative ; and the things that Grant
could do were as well known to Lee as to Grant; the only
doubt that could enter his mind was as to which thing
Grant would do next. There was nothing surprising, noth-
ing startling or sensational in this stage of the struggle ; the
two gladiators stood up and struck each other deadly blows,
until at last, as was inevitable from the first, the weaker
sank to the ground. Perhaps no other man than Lee would
have continued the fight so long; sound military judgment
must criticise him here, as it would criticise Grant, had not
Grant been conscious that he must eventually win. Yet it
is hard to condemn a brave man for fighting while he has
life to strike a blow, and Lee will perhaps always be re-
garded as the soldier in the war who made fewest mistakes,
and necessarily he will receive the most sympathy.

The first fight in the Wilderness had no decisive result.
Grant then passed the right flank of the enemy and marched
to Spottsylvania Court House; but Lee had preceded him.
Gaining nothing here, Grant repeated his maneuver, but
was again anticipated by Lee at Cold Harbor. The Fed-
erals were repulsed from the intrenchments with heavy
loss. Grant crossed the James to attack Petersburg, but
Lee was there also, and compelled a siege. On the 30th of
July a mine dug beneath a Confederate fort was exploded,
blowing up the work with its three hundred defenders; but
the Federals rushing incautiously in were slaughtered by
the Confederates, who fired upon them while struggling in

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1023

the ruins. Some three weeks later Grant succeeded in occu-
pying the "Weldon railroad, which communicated with the
South, by the stratagem of feinting at Richmond from the
north; and Lee was unable to recover it. Hunter, the
Union general, having retreated into western Virginia,
Early dashed up the Shenandoah toward Washington,
but was compelled to fall back when within striking dis-
tance. He however sent his cavalry as far as Chambers-
burg, which he burned in default of ransom. Sheridan,
who had already defeated and killed Stuart, attacked and
defeated Early, and drove the wreck of his army up the
Shenandoah, which he completely devastated. But Early
was re-enforced, and struck Sheridan's army under Wright
at Cedar Creek, Sheridan himself being at the moment
twenty miles away at Winchester. Admonished by the
sound of the guns, Sheridan rode twelve miles, met and
rallied his troops, which were retreating, fell upon the
enemy while plundering the camp, and utterly defeated
them, again and finally destroying the army. So did the
valor of one man turn the tide of war, and alter history.
Sheridan then, having no other foe to fight, joined Grant
before Richmond, and they only awaited the arrival of
Sherman to perform the closing act of the great drama.

Banks's expedition against Red River and Texas cost him
five thousand men, and supplies, and resulted in his retreat
to New Orleans, where he was relieved of his command.
Meanwhile Tennessee had been laid open to Confederate
attack by the withdrawal of Union troops, and Forrest cap-
tured Union City, was repelled from Paducah, but was again
successful at Fort Pillow, where the garrison, partly negro
troops, was killed without quarter. An attempt by Porter
to relieve Banks by bringing down his gunboats in the Red
River was prevented by the sudden falling of the waters,
and the boats were saved only by constructing wing-dams.
In August, Admiral Farragut achieved a memorable feat
and secured his fame by his attack on Mobile with his fleet.

1024 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

In order to oversee and direct the battle, he took his station
in the shrouds of his vessel, the "Hartford." He had both
wooden and iron-clad ships; but his leading monitor, "Te-
cumseh," was destroyed by a sunken torpedo. The fleet ran
past the forts, receiving and delivering a tremendous can-
nonade; within the bay were the Confederate ram "Tennes-
see" and other war vessels. Farragut had rigged false bows
of iron on his wooden ships, and they attacked the "Ten-
nessee," trying to sink her both by shot and ramming. The
shot could not pierce her armor, except in one point where
a shutter of a port had been destroyed ; and so accurate was
the Federal fire that this small aperture was penetrated by a
shell, and Admiral Buchanan was wounded by it. The ram
became the center of attention from the whole Federal fleet,
and finally surrendered. The forts likewise capitulated ; but
though the port was thus closed, the city itself, until the war
had ended, remained in Confederate hands.

There was still one uncaptured port in the Confederacy —
Wilmington, 1ST. C, defended by Fort Fisher. Grant sent
Commodore Porter, with a fleet, and General Weitzel, with
an army, against it; but General Butler usurped the com-
mand over Weitzel, gave the fort a short pounding, decided
that it was too strong for him, re-embarked his troops, and
went back to Fortress Monroe. Porter, remaining with his
ships, asked leave to make another attempt. He forced the
garrison behind their bomb-proofs by his fire, ran approaches
close to the walls, and with his sailors and marines, and a
somewhat larger army than before, under General Terry,
made a combined assault on two sides of the fort on the
afternoon of January 14, 1865. For resolute hand-to-hand
fighting, both the attack and defense equaled anything seen
in the war. The sailors were repulsed, but the soldiers forced
their way, the garrison was driven from point to point, to
the water's edge, and by midnight was compelled to surren-
der. "Conquered and conquerors looked upon each other
with pride." In February General Schofield occupied Wil-

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1025

mington. Had it not been for cruisers built in England for
the Confederacy, to take the place of their destroyed priva-
teers, the South would have been driven from the sea; but
these cruisers, manned by English crews, practically ruined
Federal commerce. Semmes, in the "Alabama," captured
sixty prizes, but was finally challenged and sunk by the Fed-
eral ' ' Kearsarge. ' ' The impossibility of getting supplies into
the South by sea caused great dearth and enormous prices ;
fifty dollars in paper brought but one in specie ; coffee was fifty
dollars a pound, and other things in proportion. Even such
soldiers as those of the Confederacy cannot fight without food
and clothing, though they came as near as possible to doing
so. The interior railways had been torn up, and even such
food as was obtainable could not be carried to the troops at
the front. The men began to desert ; yet the leaders would
not admit defeat, and braced themselves for the final struggle
before Richmond.

Besides Lee's army at Richmond, the only otner Confeder-
ate force worth considering at the beginning of 1865 was that
under Johnston in the south. But against him, Sherman
was arrayed; and he left his winter quarters, if such they
could be called in that mild climate, in the early part of
February, and headed northward; Johnston retiring before
his advance. It was the season of rains, and Sherman's
march was difficult, preceded as they were by Confederate
cavalry, which threw every obstacle in their path ; but they
were veterans and it was impossible to stop them. When
they crossed the boundaries of South Carolina — that state to
whose initiative the secession of the southern states was due
—they began a system of destruction. No consideration was
shown ; the country was laid waste ; over it hung a canopy
of smoke from burning towns and desolated farms ; this was
vengeance rather than war. The state capital, Columbia,
was burned; Hardee evacuated Charleston, which for the
better part of two years had withstood every effort of the
Federals to capture it, and before the latter could occupy it,

1026 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

a great magazine of powder had been accidentally exploded,
and hundreds of the inhabitants were killed and the city was
afire. The Union troops helped to put the fire out; but
Charleston", ruined by its long resistance, was hardly worth
saving. Passing on into North Carolina, Sherman was con-
fronted by an amalgamation of Johnston's army with the
troops which had garrisoned the principal towns of the re-
gion ; but no opposition that could seriously retard him was
made. Schofield and Terry joined Sherman at Goldsboro,
and this great army of one hundred thousand men was
massed along the Neuse, on which Goldsboro stands. It
was now possible to consider in what way Sherman should
co-operate with Grant in relation to the possible attempt of
Lee to escape from Richmond.

Lee's army was by this time, owing to various causes,
not more than fifty thousand strong, though three times that
number appeared on the rolls. He had against him what
might be called a nation in arms, and never so well supplied
as now with material and training for war. Lee's only hope
was to make a dash through almost impossible obstructions
and unite with Johnston ; yet, even could he have done this,
the ultimate destruction of the Confederate forces would have
been none the less inevitable. Had he surrendered then, he
would have lost nothing, and would have saved the lives of
thousands. But though all else in war was easy to this
general, surrender seems to have been almost impossible to
him. When a leader's only fault is dauntless courage, he
may be forgiven. He would fight to the end.

His first attempt to break out was begun by a fierce at-
tack on Fort Steadman, toward the east; but this was only
to mask a real movement in force toward the south. Grant
however did not move his left; the fort was carried, but
only to the loss of those who took it, for it was commanded
by other batteries, which opened fire and compelled the sur-
render of the assaulting division; upon which Meade ad-
vanced and took up a position nearer the city. Grant now

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH 1027

marched two corps of infantry from his right, behind his
own lines, to the extreme left, where they were joined by
Sheridan with nine thousand cavalry, and proceeded to-
ward the railway which gave egress in that direction.
Sheridan had occupied Dinwiddie Court House, and was
about to start on a raid, when, on the 30th of March,
Grant apprised him that all was ready for the final blow;
but Lee, anticipating Sheridan's attack, took the offen-
sive himself, and fell with all his strength upon Sheri-
dan at Five Forks, directly south of Richmond. Pushed
back some distance by the impetuosity of Lee's attack,
Sheridan re-formed his troops at Dinwiddie, and the Fifth
Corps under Warren got in the Confederate rear. Lee was
now merely a fighting fugitive. On the night of April
1st a great bombardment opened on Petersburg, and the
whole Union line left its intrenchments on April 2d and
swept the enemy before them. The heroic defense of the
garrison of Fort Gregg, two hundred and fifty strong, of
which only thirty were left, deserves to be remembered.
Lee, forced back within his last lines, informed the inhabi-
tants of Richmond that they must surrender. Jefferson
Davis fled, and the city became a scene of terror, horror
and lawlessness. Lee, meanwhile, with the remains of his
faithful troops, set out for Burkeville on the west. Grant
instantly pursued him with an overwhelming force. De-
layed by the necessity of collecting food for his men, Lee
found himself checked by Sheridan at Jeter sville. Turning
aside, he tried to reach Lynchburg, but Grant had foreseen
every contingency, and hemmed him in on the right, the
left, and the rear. Davies attacked his wagon train ; Cus-
ter struck and shattered his retreating column and forced
the surrender of six thousand. Lee still pressed on, and
fancied he might yet escape ; he was fighting front and rear,
and the march was a race with death. Sheridan, tireless as
a bloodhound, at length flung himself across his path ; Fitz
Hugh Lee charged with his cavalry; but as the Union

1028 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

troopers retreated, their movement revealed a solid mass
of infantry, in vast numbers, drawn up beyond. The war
was over.

Lee and Grant met at Appomatox Court House, and
with the simple forms of brave Americans at a supreme
moment, drew up and signed the terms of Lee's surrender.
"We have fought through the war together; I have done
the best I could for you," were the words in which the
great Virginian took leave of his troops. It was a war
which had cost in killed and wounded nearly a million
men ; it had destroyed slavery ; and it had determined that
this country should become one again. The wounds it made
took long to heal, but we may confidently believe that they
will never again be opened.

Four years had passed from the date of the firing of the
first gun against Sumter, when the Confederate army of
Virginia laid down its arms. Two days later Johnston sur-
rendered to Sherman. Smith's army on the further side of
the Mississippi capitulated a month after. Jefferson Davis
was captured in Georgia, while trying to escape in disguise.
He had been overestimated in the South, and in the North
there were many who demanded his trial and execution for
treason; but neither the execution nor even the trial took
place, though he was indicted. The country felt, upon sec-
ond thought, that it would be an unwise and undignified act
to punish in such a manner the mistaken ideas of patriotism
and duty which had ruined this man. He was not suited
for the position to which he had been called. He was too
narrow, too rigid, too personally proud and ambitious, to be
the leader of the South; he was not truly representative of
what was best and noblest in them. He had neither the
heroism, the tenderness, the manhood, nor the true dignity
of Robert Edward Lee.

The Civil War was the result of the collision between
the centrifugal and the centripetal forces which constitute
the weakness and the strength of our political constitution.

PAST AND FUTURE 1029

They had heretofore not been truly adjusted, so that first
one and then the other was in excess, and threatened de-
struction. The war effected this adjustment; for it proved
that secession was against the will of the nation, and at
the same time showed the dangers of overcentralization.
Justly balanced — the states against the State — our system
is the strongest and healthiest yet devised ; it is elastic, yet
it can be neither crushed nor disrupted. It was slavery
which led to the effort to disrupt it; that was expunged
from our escutcheon by the blood of those who fell on either
side, and thus, it may be hoped, the sin which we stood
accountant for as a nation was washed away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH

PAST AND FUTURE

N" the 9th of April, 1865, Lee surrendered; on
the 12th, his soldiers stacked their arms and
were paroled; meanwhile, Lincoln visited
Richmond, and walked about its scarred
and smoke-blackened streets; in the after-
noon he held a reception in what had been
the Confederate executive mansion ; on the evening of April
14th he was due to attend a play in Ford's Theater in Wash-
ington ; he felt ill, and would have stayed at home, but for
an unwillingness to disappoint the people, whose joy at the
conclusion of the war had sharpened their desire to see and
greet the President who had piloted them through the great-
est storm that ever fell upon the Republic. Six months
before, they had avouched their confidence in him by re-
electing him to his office, McClellan, the representative of
faint-heartedness and discouragement, being his opponent.

1030 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Andrew Johnson, another man of the people, a tailor by-
trade, had been chosen Vice-President.

During the heat of battle the South had doubtless hated
Lincoln; for he had freed their slaves; and by the Thir-
teenth Amendment of the Constitution, ratified in December
following his death, the corollary of his Emancipation Proc-
lamation was accomplished; it declared slavery forever at
an end in all parts of the United States. But the South was
magnanimous, as are all brave peoples, and it was capable
of realizing that this quaint, uncouth great man was no
enemy of theirs, but loved them as a part of the nation he
was appointed to govern, and had only opposed them with
the whole strength at his command so long as they mis-
takenly fought against what he knew to be their own ulti-
mate good. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; and the
South was on the way to see and confess the friendship of
Abraham Lincoln.

For his part, his mind, in these first moments of light
after the long darkness, was occupied with plans for the re-
instatement of the seceding states in the privileges assured
by the Constitution ; and the terms of peace offered by Sher-
man to the army of Johnston may be taken as a sketch in
the rough of what Lincoln hoped to confirm by regular leg-
islative process. These terms spoke of recognition of state
governments in the South, of restoring to them the franchise
and political rights, and of a general amnesty. The terms
were sent to Congress for consideration, and had not of
course been passed upon on the 14th of April. But Lincoln
believed that the way to win back the heart of the South
was to be generous to them, and trust to their honor loyally
to submit to what the test of war, so valiantly invoked, had
decided. They were ruined, in power and fortune ; but they
were our brothers, and it was to the interest as much of the
North as of theirs to take every means to heal their wounds
and support their faltering footsteps, until their strength and
health returned to them.

PAST AND FUTURE 1031

But there was in the South a small and obscure knot of
irreconcilables who desired revenge, and who regarded Lin-
coln as their arch-foe. By what process of reasoning they
persuaded themselves that his death could profit the South,
we cannot conceive; and it is possible that their governing
thought was to inflict sorrow on the people which they had
failed to overcome in battle. But it would seem that the
most elementary perception of the motives which govern
human action should have apprised them that an act of
deadly violence against the Chief Magistrate, at a time
when the war was done, could result only in hardening the
heart of the North against them, and causing the terms
granted to them to be more severe than otherwise they
would be. Be that as it may, a conspiracy was hatched
by the extreme wing of this small group of malcontents,
and eight persons were afterward known as having been
actively concerned in it. The protagonist of the conspir-
acy, its boldest and most urgent member, was a hare-brained
and dare-devil actor, John Wilkes Booth, representing the
narrowest and most fanatical spirit of the South ; a young
man, handsome, vain, high-flown, and reckless of life. His
profession, or rather his conception of it, had inflamed and
confirmed the cheap, sensational, histrionic views of mortal
obligations which were native to him ; and he stood forward
as the instrument by whom the chief crime contemplated
was to be done. His fellows were to strike down, at the
same moment, other distinguished members of the Cabinet,
and the Vice-President — for the rumor that Johnson was in
any way or degree cognizant of the conspiracy never had
foundation, and was on the face of it preposterous. We
must suppose that it was hoped thus to paralyze the North,
and terrify them into yielding the government to hands
which might guide it in Southern interests. A more per-
verse and impossible notion could hardly have entered th©
brain of a madman.

We need not be concerned to recall the dark details of

1032 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the plot. Lincoln entered his stage-box at the theater, which
was draped with the American flag, which had been rent,
and was now whole again. Several persons were with him.
The box was but little elevated above the stage, so that an
active man might easily leap thence to the stage without in-
jury. The performance had not been long in progress, when
the door of the box was opened, and a young man entered.
It is said that he locked the door behind him with his left
hand. In his right hand was a revolver. No one knew
who he was ; and the suddenness of his entrance prevented
his being question 3d. Probably he might have been mis-
taken for some person employed in the front of the house,
or perhaps for a messenger with dispatches from the State
Department. The time was counted by seconds. He took
a step forward, leveled his weapon at the back of the uncon-
scious President's head, and sent the bullet through his brain.
Then, pushing forward at once to the front of the box, he
vaulted over the railing to the stage below. It is said that
in so doing the spur on his heel caught in the folds of the
flag, causing him to strike the stage in such a way as to
snap the bone of the leg above the ankle. The audience
had heard the sound of the shot, but for an instant fancied
it to be in some way connected with the performance. But
the spectacle of a man leaping from the President's box upon
the stage was too extraordinary to be accounted for; and
when he was seen to throw up the arm which held the
weapon, and to exclaim "Sic semper Tyrannis," imme-
diately passing across the stage and out by the rear, the
theater was in an uproar.

The shot had stricken Lincoln senseless, and his body
inclined forward as he sat. The wound was mortal, and
he never spoke or had a conscious thought from the first ;
he survived several hours, and died the next day, the 15th.
The other conspirators were unsuccessful, though Payne
forced his way into Seward's chamber and attacked him
with a knife. The other intended victims, including Gen-

PAST AND FUTURE 1033

eral Grant, were not approached. Booth had been the only
one whose success was complete.

Had this assassination been perpetrated in 1863, when
the South was winning victories, and when many in the
North thought the cause of the Union was lost, it might
have had a profound effect upon the complexion of affairs.
But now it could have no effect, except to curdle the milk of
human kindness which was beginning to flow in the breast
of the North for their conquered brethren. At first it was
surmised that the crime might have been conceived in high
quarters ; but a little reflection showed that it was impossible
that Southern gentlemen could have lent themselves to an
act so dastardly. Booth was pursued and shot in a barn
where he had taken refuge, which had been set on fire ; no
man of the attacking party having the courage to go up and
take him prisoner. A story was told to the effect that the
man thus killed was not Booth; that the latter had made
good his escape, and died many years later in the West In-
dies. Such legends are apt to spring up in the surroundings
of a great crime ; they amuse the popular imagination ; but
they never sustain the test of serious examination. The
other conspirators were arrested and executed, Mrs. Surratt,
at whose house the conspirators met, included. But beyond
this, no attempt at retaliation was made by the North. Jef-
ferson Davis, after his arrest, was imprisoned for a couple
of years in Fortress Monroe, and then unconditionally re-
leased. Meanwhile the era of Reconstruction had begun,
and Johnson and Congress were at odds upon the questions
involved. It was now that the harmonizing influence of
Lincoln was missed, and the South was brought to a prac-
tical realization of how wise and charitable a friend they
had lost in him.

Johnson, on assuming office, saw the army of the North

quietly disbanded ; for a day the procession of two hundred

thousand men, in weather-worn uniforms, with tattered

flags and polished guns, defiled before the President; the

U.S.— 44 Vol. III.

1034 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

men who had made history, the preservers of the Union,
the citizens who had taken up arms and transformed them-
selves into the best soldiers in the world, who were now to
lay down their arms and be reabsorbed at once into the body
of the population from which they had come forth. Both
to the eye, and to the mind and heart, it was a spectacle of
unexampled grandeur and impressiveness. These men could
have marched, as they were, to the conquest of the world ;
but their thoughts were not of ambition, or of the seizure of
power, but of home, and of the quiet and industrious pro-
ductive life which is proper to the citizens of a republic.
Yet a profound difference had been wrought in them by the
war, and in the main it was a beneficial one ; their military
discipline had taught them the meaning and uses of disci-
pline and the sway of just authority in the life of peace : a
lesson of peculiar value to a great democracy, whose foible
it is to lapse into loose ways of action and thought. It had
taught them the worth of patriotism, and steadfast courage
in meeting the stress of battle in the matters of daily routine,
which are often not less trying than is the shock of arms in
open war. By revealing to them their own strength, it ren-
dered them gentle and charitable, and less sensitive to the
criticism of others. Incidentally, it had given them an
acquaintance with their own country which might other-
wise have been postponed for generations ; and a sympathy
with and respect for the men against whom they fought,
which might else perhaps never have been attained at all.

So far all was well ; but the politicians who had remained
at home now once more became prominent, and sowed the
seeds of legislative trouble. Johnson's theory was that the
states had never in fact seceded, because the result of the war
had proved secession to be ineffective; therefore, as soon as
certain formalities had been observed, they should be read-
mitted to the rights of citizenship, voting, and representation
in Congress. Upon this basis he acted, during the period
while Congress was not in session ; but on their reassembling

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1035

they adopted a stricter view of the situation, and disallowed
some of the President's acts. Strife ensued between the
executive and legislative branches ; Johnson vetoed the bills
of Congress, and the latter, having a two-thirds Republican
majority, passed the bills over his veto. The law of appoint-
ments to and dismissal from office was a bone of contention,
and the quarrel came to a head over Johnson's dismissal
from the office of Secretary of "War of Stanton, who had acted
efficiently under Lincoln, but whose brutality on several occa-
sions had raised him up many enemies. In the stress of
emotion and anxiety caused by the fortunes and doubts
of the war, much should be forgiven to men of honest pur-
pose and sterling patriotism, like Stanton, who temporarily-
lost temper and judgment, and so committed acts of injustice.
The determination of Congress to continue him in office in
spite of the President, led to an .attempt to impeach the lat-
ter, in which much time and breath -Were wasted, and no
good result whatever attained; for neither was the motion
successful, nor was the^conduct of public business promoted;
on the contrary, feelings of mutual enmity were aroused
which were injurious to all concerned, and most of all to the
public, which had elected these men to attend to the affairs
of the nation. The Reconstruction measure which Congress
carried over trr veto was to the effect that the states had in
fact seceded ,nd were unassimilated as yet to the Union,
and could become so only through act of Congress. Citizen-
ship was given to negroes by a Fourteenth Amendment, and
representation was reduced according to the number of citi-
zens admitted to citizenship. ISTo person who had violated
his oath by joining in the act of secession should be allowed
to hold office under the United States, and compensation for
freed slaves should not be accorded. These laws were not
wisely framed ; their effect was to exclude from responsible
positions the men of the South who were best qualified for
holding them, and to put in power the tribe of irresponsible
adventurers, known as "carpet-baggers," who for real or

1036 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

assumed party services had been let loose on the Southern
states. Hard feeling and disturbances ensued, as might
have been expected ; and the military governors who ruled
the seceded states by martial law did not throw oil upon the
troubled waters. Johnson's policy was the wiser of the two,
though it also might have been wiser. In matters of this
kind, action should not be taken according to the strict dic-
tation of logic. It was bootless to ask whether or not the
states had seceded ; the thing to do was to trust so far as
possible to their common-sense and good faith, and to re-
move instead of placing obstacles in the way of bringing a
proud people once more into the fold from which they had
broken forth. Military laws and alien interlopers should
not have been permitted ; Americans should not have to be
told that, for any community not actually barbarous, home-
rule is the only rule admissible. Disturbances might of
course have occurred under such liberal terms, but they
would have been discountenanced by the weight of public
opinion, and could readily have been checked by more
stringent means if necessary. As it was, the states sub-
scribed to the new regulations slowly and reluctantly, and
the acerbities of the war were kept alive. The Republican
Party, which had gloriously brought the country through
the war, here began already to abuse its pow. r ; and though
its predominance was to be prolonged for mi ny years, and
was still to be productive of much good, its decline had
commenced, and from some of its mistakes we are still in-
convenienced. But the Republican Party was, for the pres-
ent, a Hobson's choice for the people; they could not again
trust the Democrats, who had become in a measure identi-
fied with the principle of disloyalty. Centralization was a
natural tendency, after the experience of the perils incident
to the opposite point of view; and we should perhaps won-
der that the Republicans, as chartered libertines, did not
do more mischief, than that they did any mischief at all.
During Johnson's term occurred the culmination of the

PAST AND FUTURE 1037

Maximilian incident in Mexico. Napoleon III., aiming at
foreign empire, had long been plotting to get hold of Mexico ;
and our Civil War gave him the opportunity he desired to
set at naught the warning of our Monroe Doctrine. Per-
suading the English and the Spanish to act with him, he
made with them an effort to collect damages for injuries
sustained or alleged in the past; and to induce the anarch-
ical populace to accept a permanent ruler. Spain and Eng-
land soon retired from the combination, perceiving its true
objects; and Napoleon then sent an armed expedition to
Mexico City, which forced the Mexicans to accept a king
in the person of Archduke Maximilian of Austria — who, for
his part, agreed to ascend the throne upon the assurance
(falsely given by France) that the entire Mexican people
desired him to do so. That the popular desire had been for
a republic he was not long in discovering ; but with Austrian
obstinacy, he would not recede ; and a long course of intes-
tine trouble might have been the result, had not the ending
of our war admonished France that her support of the king
must cease. Lacking Napoleon's support, Maximilian was
unable to make head against the leader of the republican
element, Juarez; he was court-martialed and shot. Except
in Brazil and Canada, there were now no traces of empires
in the western hemisphere; and the former was soon to
throw off her royal yoke, though it had been an easy one.
In 1866 Cyrus W. Field, after twelve years' labor and
three experiments, accomplished the laying of the Atlantic
cable by means of the steamship "Great Eastern"; it was
one of the renowned victories of peace. Not less important
in another way was the purchase from Russia, for about
seven million dollars, of the vast territory of Alaska, which
was supposed to be valuable only as a fur country, but which
has since, in a single year, yielded gold enough to repay its
cost many times over. Nevada had been made a state in
Lincoln's time; Nebraska was admitted in 1867. The gen-
eral prosperity of the country was great, in spite of the des-

1038 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

titution of a large part of the South ; the public debt, which
had risen to over two and a half billion dollars during 1865,
underwent a steady reduction from this time forth, begin-
ning with a sum of over seventy millions in the very first
year of peace. The revenue from duties, taxes and stamps,
at the same period, was more than three hundred and twenty
million dollars.

When the national conventions assembled, that of the Re-
publicans unanimously voted for Grant as the next Presi-
dent; the Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour, who was
defeated at the polls by one hundred and forty electoral
votes, but only by about three hundred thousand votes cast
by the people. Grant was the third soldier to assume the
office of Executive since Washington; and though he had
not the political ability of Jackson, nor even, it may be, of
Taylor, he was so strong, straightforward and firm that his
administrations were a success. The chief industrial feat-
ure of his first administration was the completion of the
Atlantic-Pacific railway, which gave an immense momen-
tum to the prosperity of the country ; and its chief disaster
was the great fires, which almost destroyed Chicago, laid
a large part of Boston in ruins, and devastated Wisconsin,
Minnesota and Michigan. Threat of war with England was
averted by the payment by her of damages for injuries to
commerce sustained from the cruiser " Alabama," built and
manned by England; and by the rectification of the north-
west boundary in our favor ; both being the result of arbitra-
tion. Grant was in favor of accepting the tender of annexa-
tion made by the Republic of San Domingo; but Congress
rejected it, whether or not wisely is still matter of dispute.
Grant was made his own successor, the coalition candidate
of liberal Republicans and Democrats, Horace Greeley, the
journalist, being defeated, much to his own surprise. A
war with the Modocs, who had left their reservation, and
murdered commissioners sent to treat with them, was one
of the first incidents of Grant's second term ; and a similar

PAST AND FUTURE 1039

difficulty with the Sioux occurred in 1876, and was marked
by the death of Custer and his men, who attacked an Indian
village with inferior numbers, and were surrounded and killed
before re-enforcements could arrive. The first Centennial
Exhibition was given at Philadelphia in 1876, three years
after the disastrous panic caused by the failure of the bank-
ers, Jay Cooke & Co., who had dabbled overmuch in rail-
way stocks. The American people are fond of anniversaries,
and uniformly observe them with heartiness and elaboration.
The centennial of the Republic was a specially glorified Fourth
of July, and it was delightful to the patriotic American to
compare what we were in 1876 with what we had been a
hundred years before. The material progress was certainly
surprising ; but it might have been edifying to inquire how
far we rose above the moral and self-abnegating virtues
which had characterized us in Washington's time. The
behavior of a people varies with its conditions of life ; but
prosperity, sudden and excessive, is of all conditions the
most hostile to the development of civic integrity and faith-
fulness. Looking upon our increase in population, power
and wealth, we were easily forgetful of the principles which
had laid the foundation for such an unprecedented advance,
and we tended to give undue credit to that kind of ability
which wins material success and accumulates money. That
the true greatness of a country does not lie in this direction
has of late been recognized by a part of our people, and it
may be expected that a change in the object of our energies
may gradually be made.

Grant went out of office with the affection and respect
of his countrymen, which his services both in the field and
in the White House had well deserved. After his retire-
ment he made a tour of the world, which he had intended
to be a private affair, but which became the most famous
"progress" of modern times; he was everywhere received
by the governments of the countries he visited with honor,
as the most distinguished living American ; and nothing that

1040 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

he said or did during his journey failed to confirm the good
repute which had preceded him. His simplicity and his
greatness were at all times and in all places equally appar-
ent, and greatly elevated the foreign estimate of his country.
The mind dwells upon every act of his career, public and
private, with satisfaction; and a few years before his death
he made the unusual reply to a question on the subject, that
had he his life to live over again, he would choose to live it
as before. His last years were saddened by a financial mis-
fortune, for which he was not to blame ; and they were en-
nobled by the constancy with which, while dying from a
painful disease, he continued to write his "Memoirs," in
order to secure for his family support after his death. He
lived just long enough to finish the book, the sale of which
justified his hopes. It is an important contribution to the
history of the war; and the modesty of its tone, and the
strength and simplicity of its style, recall and reflect
the qualities of the man who wrote it.

Besides the Democrats and the Republicans, there was a
third party in the Presidential contest for 1876 — the Green-
back Party, whose platform called for the issue of green-
backs based on the credit of the country, with which bonds
should be bought up. Peter Cooper, a venerable and rustic
old gentleman, of great wealth and philanthropic disposition,
was nominated by this party; Samuel Tilden was the Dem-
ocratic choice; and the Republicans put up Rutherford B.
Haj-es, a person of correct private life and limited caliber,
who had been a respectable volunteer officer in the war, but
who was destitute of any personal qualifications or deserts
for the office. The processes of the election were unusually
fraudulent; the whole power of the Republicans being ex-
erted for their candidate, while Tilden was the undoubted
preference of the majority of the nation. In spite of all that
bribery and intimidation could do, the count was so close
that danger was feared should Hayes be declared elected;
and a commission was therefore appointed to pa3s upon the

PAST AND FUTURE 1041

returns. It was made up of fifteen members, appointed in
consequence of the recommendation of a Congressional com •
mittee : — five Senators, five Representatives, and five associ-
ate justices of the Supreme Court. The commission decided
each case brought before it in favor of the Republicans, by a
constant vote of eight against seven, and Hayes was accord-
ingly declared President. Preparations were secretly made
to suppress with an iron hand the revolt that was appre-
hended ; but the Democrats, though convinced that the elec -
tion had been stolen, acquiesced with admirable loyalty, and
Mr. Hayes assumed his functions.

His colorless administration, streaked with pallid efforts
at ''reform," requires little notice. Evarts, a distinguished
New York lawyer, was his Secretary of State, and Carl
Schurz was his Secretary of the Interior. Hayes withdrew
from South Carolina and Louisiana the United States troops
which had been sent there by Grant to maintain order ; and
those states in consequence came at once under the normal
Democratic control. In 1877 the industrial situation was
threatened by large and violent strikes and riots at Pitts-
burg, Chicago, Reading and Baltimore ; property was burned
and destroyed, the troops were called out, and many per-
sons were killed ; the strikers gained nothing. There was a
severe yellow fever epidemic in the South. Hayes in vain
vetoed the Bland Silver Bill which authorized the coining
of a 412^2 -grain silver dollar at the rate of between two
and four million dollars annually, and made it legal ten-
der; and recommended, but without result, the fixing of a
ratio between gold and silver by international agreement.
The sum of five and a half million dollars was awarded by
a commission to England as compensation for alleged inter-
ference with English fisheries rights. Gold reached par in
1878, from a maximum advance of 285 in 1864. Specie pay-
ments were resumed a few days later . The census of 1880
showed the population to have increased over eleven mil-
lions during the past decade, numbering upward of fifty

tq42 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

millions. The most curious minor incident of Hayes's ad-
ministration was the crusade against wines and liquor un-
dertaken by Mrs. Hayes; the only result being that, by her
orders, wine was not served at White House dinners. Mrs.
Hayes was the wife of a public servant to whom had been
temporarily intrusted the stewardship of government prop-
erty ; and her conduct illustrates her conception of her rights
in the premises.

Parties were still further multiplied in the canvass of
1880; the Prohibitionists and the Anti-Masonic parties being
added to the former three. General Grant also stood for a
third term. Garfield and Arthur were the regular Repub-
lican nominees ; General Hancock was selected by the Demo-
crats ; General Weaver by the Greenbackers ; Neal Dow by
the Prohibitionists, and John W. Phelps by the Anti-Masons.
Here were five generals against two civilians. Arthur, how-
ever, was but a quartermaster-general; and Garfield can
hardly be said to have reached mediocrity as a volunteer
general. But he was a clever politician, and a useful man
to his party. He was successful over Hancock by a mod-
erate margin ; Neal Dow had some ten thousand supporters
in the United States, and the Greenbackers could muster
but three hundred thousand.

Garfield's Secretary of State was James G. Blaine. The
Republican Party was divided into two hostile camps at this
time ; the dispute between them being as to who should con-
trol the division of the spoils. Roscoe Conkling, the leader
of the "half-breeds," as the opponents of the "stalwart"
administration were called, resigned his seat in the Senate
on account of an appointment by Garfield which displeased
him. The wrangling which ensued caused some excitement,
which turned the brain of a wretched office-hunter named
Guiteau ; and he shot Garfield in the back at a Washington
railroad station on July 2d, 1881. Garfield's youth and vig-
orous constitution kept him alive till the 19th of September;
meanwhile great sympathy was expressed for him. Upon

PAST AND FUTURE 1043

his death, Arthur succeeded him. Garfield had been a poor
farmer's boy; had married a farmer's daughter, and owed
such education as he had to his own efforts. Arthur was a
rich man and an "exquisite," a genial fine gentleman of
popular manners. Only two matters of importance are asso-
ciated with his administration: the Chinese exclusion bill,
and the tariff reform bill. The former was passed, with
many dissentients; the latter is still a bone of contention
between parties; and the attempts which have been made
to solve the problem which it involves have cost us much
money and more ill-feeling. Statesmanship, politics and
finance become mixed in an inextricable snarl, and the
multitude of advisers do but darken counsel. Upon the
whole, fortune was kind to Arthur in giving him nothing
of moment to do ; and he retired from office with the com-
mendation and good will of all.

In the ensuing election the frivolity of the time was shown
in the still further increase of so called parties ; not to men-
tion others, there was the woman's rights party with Belva
A. Lockwood for President and Mrs. Dr. Lozier for Vice-Presi-
dent. The Democrats were represented by Grover Cleveland
and T. A. Hendricks, the Eepublicans by James G. Blaine
and John A. Logan. Cleveland and Hendricks were elected.
Cleveland was another poor boy ; but he had early got into
politics; he had sent a substitute to the war, and applied
himself to making a political career. He rose through vari-
ous civic grades till he was elected governor of ~New York
by a majority unusually large, which put him in the presi-
dential race. He was bold and firm, and honest as poli-
ticians go ; confident in the soundness of his own views, and
apt to be independent in his attitude. He caught the fancy
of his countrymen, and was in many ways a favorite of for-
tune. He had an advantage in being the first Democratic
President for many years, and his ambition to make a rec-
ord was no doubt genuine and honorable.

The epoch was necessarily one of small things. There

1044 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

were no foreign complications, except the chronic petty
squabbles with England about the fisheries, which led, this
term, to the dismissal of Lord Sackville, the British minister
to "Washington, on account of a foolish letter he had been
betrayed into writing on the subject. The Indians, on whose
behalf much pretentious legislation, with a view to their edu-
cation, had been passed or mooted, gave trouble again after
a period of quiet, owing to invasion of their rights in Okla-
homa. Senator Blair got a bill through Congress forbidding
the importation of aliens under contract to perform labor in
this country ; upon which a notoriety-loving member of the
St. Andrew's Society brought an action to restrain the ser-
mons of an English clergyman who had been asked to officiate
in an American friend's pulpit during the latter's absence.
A New England Senator, anxious to be doing something for
his constituents, conceived the idea of a presidential succes-
sion bill, which specified the order in which the office should
pass from one Secretary to another, in the event of their all
dying one after the other. Some tinkering was done with
army and navy bills, with no results perceptible outside of
"Washington. Against any improvement or strengthening
of our army or navy the threadbare and thrifty argument
was used that we were at war with nobody, meant to attack
none, and would be attacked by nobody; therefore, why
should we accumulate means of offense and defense? They
cost money, and could be of no use. It was a policy of shop-
keepers, humanitarians, Trusts and bankers; people who
form a not inconsiderable class of the community, and whose
operations give them exaggerated prominence, but who in no
degree represent the spirit of the nation. The nation, how-
ever, attending, each individual of it, to his own affairs,
takes little note of proceedings in "Washington, unless what
occurs there happens to touch the popular imagination.
Politicians, and those whose secret or open subsidies con-
stitute the springs of their activity, are allowed to have
things their own way, until some scandal or turpitude of

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unusual baseness takes place, making the people growl men-
acingly for a while, and sending the offenders scuttling
to cover. But soon the many-headed monster turns to its
affairs again, and the noxious creatures creep out once
more. In general, little vital mischief is done; the coun-
try is strong enough to support vast quantities of parasites
without feeling a drain. But the money annually paid out
by Uncle Sam to persons who, to put it in the most delicate
way, have done nothing honestly entitling them to it, would
maintain an army and navy as large and efficient as those
of any European power, and would place a belt of steel
round our entire coasts. It is vain to suppose that other
nations will respect us because we are big and rich, if we
turn out to be, at the same time, strengthless and pusillani-
mous. On the contrary they will regard us as a goose to be
fattened, and, at the proper time, to be killed and eaten. An
object lesson of the fate of a great nation which has no civic
unity and power of co-operation, is afforded by the recent
history of China. With a population of hundreds of mil-
lions, and immense resources of treasure, this nation was de-
faeted in war by a few thousand foreign soldiers and sailors.
The nation had become, during centuries, self-centered; the
mass of the people, overawed by combinations of the rich
and ambitious, had lost all sense of nationality and patriot-
ism, and were sunk into a kind of industrious barbarism,
each atom working for itself or for its immediate master.
At last there was no longer a nation, but only countless
hordes of disconnected individuals, more or less in subjec-
tion to arbitrary tyrants. It would be inaccurate to say that
China went to war with Japan, or was beaten by her. Only
a minute fraction of the Chinese inhabitants of the country
were ever aware that any war had taken place. But they
were and are helpless to repel aggression, and we now see
their country being divided up among the alien invaders,
whose only consideration is not for the Chinese but for one
another. No one who understands history will say that it

1046 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was exclusiveness which brought China to this pass ; it was
selfishness, in the whole and in all its parts; the policy of
each one for himself, with its inevitable corollaries of grad-
ual subordination of the many to the few, the spread of
ignorance, and disintegration. If the industrial affairs of
America should continue to be managed by trusts, insensibly
increasing in strength and independence; if its financial in-
terests are left to combinations of bankers; if its government
is abandoned to politicians; the fate of China must ulti-
mately be ours. Like causes produce like results in the end,
though that end may seem so distant as to be non-existent.
— But, in truth, the conditions which have suggested such a
peril are transient, and do but warn us to keep to our duty.
Civil Service Reform, and the Tariff, were the chief ob-
jects of attention during Cleveland's term. Some steps were
taken toward making tenure of civil office dependent upon
fitness for it, instead of upon party services ; and there was
a show of competitive examinations, and assurances that
there should be no removals except for cause, one of which
was specified as "pernicious activity." But the broad prin-
ciple first enunciated by William Marcy and enforced by
Andrew Jackson, that to the victors belong the spoils, still
holds practical sway in our government; with the conse-
quence that a large part of the President's time is occupied
in the mere clerk's drudgery of removing and appointing
incumbents of consulships, post-offices, and the like petty
offices. The men who apply for these posts are usually, of
course, men who have failed to make a living by ordinary
trades or professions, and who, knowing that their tenure is
limited to four years, try to make as much as possible out of
their brief opportunities, and give small thought to the wel-
fare of the interests confided to them. But were office-hold-
ers to be kept in their positions year after year and term
after term, during good behavior, the government would be
deprived of the vast patronage which their constant rotation
supplies; and patronage means the votes and political sup-

PAST AND FUTURE 1047

port of subordinates, and money extorted from them under
various pretexts, most of which goes into the pockets of
their superiors. Our government is a government of the
people by and for the people ; and until the majority of our
people shows itself explicitly and persistently opposed to this
rotation system, it will continue. Public spirit, civic virtue,
not sporadic and spasmodic, but general and continuous, are
needed. The American people is capable of them, when
poignant need arises; but they do not as yet show them-
selves willing to take time and attention from private affairs,
year after year and decade after decade, in order to enforce
measures and principles which all admit to be right. It is
only after public abuses have begun obviously to interfere
with the prosperity of private business, that we can expect a
genuine movement of reform. The supporters of corruption
fight hard, because they fight for life ; their opponents are at
the disadvantage of fighting them against their own per-
sonal convenience and inclination. Corruption has a strong
and highly organized system, patiently fortified against every
attack, prepared to bow before a passing storm, and to rise
again after it has passed, often seeming to enlist under its
opponents' banner, in order the more thoroughly to defeat
and discredit them. The considerable body of political re-
formers and independents known in our nickname language
as Mugwumps, has numbered in its ranks many men of
sterling character and ability ; but they have not won hearty
popular sympathy. They seem, as a whole, to have been
lacking in sympathy with average human nature, in politi-
cal sagacity, and in knowledge of the world ; they have put
forward excellent moral propositions, and have been per-
plexed at their own failure. But in order to win the confi-
dence of the average American, who is slightly cynical and
full of common-sense, though capable, upon occasion, of
fighting and dying for an abstract idea, these Mugwumps
must give us something which they have not given as yet.
They have their value as showing a growing tendency on

1048 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the part of the community to achieve better conditions ; but
the magnetic word that shall unite all in accomplishing such
conditions has not yet been spoken; the leader whom all
cannot choose but follow has not yet arisen. We recognize
that the political and industrial bosses are men who do what
the average citizen might do if he had the chance and the
ability; and therefore there is a half-heartedness about our
condemnation of them. Mere ability, the faculty of manag-
ing, receives great admiration in this country, without too
much regard to the methods by which results are attained.
This is but natural in a republic where every man must
fight for himself or go down. The boss relieves the average
citizen of a great deal of trouble, and thereby sets him free
to look after his personal interests. The trusts crush the
small dealers, but they are a convenience for the consumer,
and the increased price which the latter may be obliged to
pay is set off against the facility of making purchases.
Wage earners are wronged, but low wages cheapen prod-
ucts. Many doctors of political economy have arisen, with
medicines for the cure of these ills ; but it will probably be
necessary for us to wait for experience to prove to us that
the welfare of each depends in the long run on the welfare
of the whole, and to live accordingly.

The tariff developed the existence of two opposite opin-
ions in the country, one holding that foreign goods should
be taxed in order to protect the manufacturers of the same
lines of goods here; the other, that such protection is really
of little help to the manufacturer, while it injures the con-
sumer. Free trade and protection are irreconcilable ene.
mies, and their quarrel, too, must be settled by experience.
Under Cleveland, Roger Q. Mills introduced a bill favoring
free trade, which passed the House but was halted in the
Senate. Cleveland's first administration had about it a good
deal of personal flavor, but the people liked it partly for that
reason, inasmuch as Cleveland was held to be honest, uncor-
rupt, and to mean right. His intellect was not great, but

PAST AND FUTURE 1049

he was a man who learned as he went along. There was a
massiveness about him which was comforting. Nor, as an
element in his popularity, should we neglect to notice his
marriage to a beautiful and intelligent woman. Sentiment
catches many votes in this hard-headed people.

In 1888, the two chief candidates were Cleveland and
Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of the former President
Harrison, of Tippecanoe. Benjamin Harrison was in every
way a worthy gentleman, who had always done work given
him to do with faithfulness and energy, and who continued
that practice in the White House. He had been a good
soldier in the war, liked by his men, and attentive to their
welfare and discipline ; and his commands to them in battle
uniformly began with "Come"— not "Go." He was a law-
yer by profession, and had served in the Senate; bis opin-
ions, as drawn out during the canvass, were such as might
be expected from a man of integrity and respectability, who
was a Republican. He favored Civil Service reform, but
turned out and put in as many civil servants as had any of
his predecessors. He appointed Corporal Tanner Commis-
sioner of Pensions. The pension payments had risen from
thirty-four millions in 1884 to nearly fifty- three millions in
1887 ; and within a few months Tanner had raised this sum
to over eighty millions, and was still going on. The na-
tional surplus was being wiped out, and Tanner was com-
pelled by public opinion to resign. By the agency of Blaine,
the Secretary of State, negotiations were opened looking to
reciprocity with South American states — import duties to be
mutually lowered or abolished. The revenue of the country,
internal and customs, was larger than ever before. Idaho
and Wyoming were admitted as states. William McKinley
introduced a tariff bill, raising some duties and lowering
others; it was relied upon by the Republicans to confirm
their hold on power; but its first effect was to change the
majority in* Congress from Republican to Democratic, and
in connection with other things, it defeated the Republicans

1050 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

at the polls for the next Presidential election. The contin-
ued free coinage of silver was beginning to unsettle financial
matters, and much opposition to it was developed. An in-
ternational copyright bill was passed, giving, under certain
restrictions, American ownership of their work to authors
foreign to America, and conferring similar privileges on our
authors in foreign countries. In 1891, the Italian secret
assassination society, called the Mafia, murdered a police
officer in New Orleans; the culprits were tried and ac-
quitted; but the mob broke open the jail and killed them.
The Italian minister at Washington protested, and our gov-
ernment paid twenty-five thousand dollars damages. The
following year, members of the crew of the American man-
of-war "Baltimore" were killed or hurt in a popular emeute
in Valparaiso, Chile ; and at first the Chile government made
unsatisfactory replies to our demands for satisfaction; but
subsequently apologized, and paid seventy-five thousand dol-
lars indemnity. — Such are the ripples that varied the general
calm of Harrison's administration.

After a tame campaign, in which the party differences
concerned chiefly protection, and Federal supervision of elec-
tions, which Republicans favored and Democrats opposed,
Grover Cleveland, renominated by the Democrats, was suc-
cessful against Harrison. Cleveland returned to power to
the sound of the guns which celebrated the four hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of America. Business depres-
sion and financial troubles were great and numerous ; but in
the meanwhile the preparations for the Columbian Exposi-
tion, held in Chicago to commemorate Columbus's discovery,
and to illustrate the industrial condition of the world, were
actively making. The exhibition was held during six months,
ending November, 1893, and was in all respects a success;
the instruction it gave to the country was of permanent value,
and it also, incidentally, enabled the people of all sections to
see and become acquainted with one another.- But while
this splendid picture of material progress and wealth was

PAST AND FUTURE 1051

being displayed, the condition of the country, owing to arti-
ficial causes, became worse. One of the President's first acts
was to recall from the Senate the Hawaiian annexation bill.
The Wilson bill, reducing tariff on imports, was passed,
though strongly opposed ; but such was the agitation in the
country, traceable to no well-ascertained cause, that failures
became constant. No one was sure what was the matter;
but the people, in these cases, are apt to lay the blame on
the existing administration, though often the latter may
be wholly innocent, and but suffers from the evil legacy of
its predecessor. The Democratic majority in Congress was
reversed. The tariff did not pay the expenses of govern-
ment, and the income tax, which had been much disliked,
was finally declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The discussion of financial problems at this period was un-
precedented, but little light was thrown upon them. The re-
peal of the Sherman silver bill was demanded, and it began
to be evident that the next election would turn on financial
questions ; the Republicans demanding the adoption of a gold
standard, in harmony with Europe, and the Democrats, led
by their nominee, William Jennings Bryan, urging the free
and unlimited coinage of silver and the establishment of a
ratio between silver and gold of sixteen to one. Meanwhile
there was another threat of war with England; not, this
time, on account of cod fisheries or seal fisheries; but because
England refused to accept our proposal to arbitrate her dis-
pute with Venezuela as to the true boundary between that
country and British Guiana. Solicitude for our Monroe
Doctrine urged us to take a hand in the matter; and Cleve-
land sent a message to Congress recommending an ex parte
commission to inquire into the merits of the case. This
menaced war with England ; stocks and United States bonds
fell; the price of money rose from two per cent to eight.
But the danger was finally averted through moderation on
England's part. A rebellion which had broken out in Cuba
against Spanish official tyranny and outrage attracted some

1052 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

attention at this time, though its ultimate consequences were
not foreseen ; attempts to secure recognition of a Cuban Re-
public by this country failed. There had been a previous, un-
successful rebellion twenty years before ; and it was evident
that the conditions in the island were become intolerable.

The campaign of 1896 was in some respects remarkable.
Bryan was a very young man for a presidential aspirant; he
was gifted with eloquence, and he had the utmost sincerity
of conviction that the principles he enunciated were true,
and would pull the country out of its financial hole. More
money was wanted, so that the poor might be enabled to
live; he believed that by coining silver freely, its value as
one-sixteenth that of gold might be maintained ; he thought
other countries would follow our lead in fixing this ratio,
and meanwhile he declared that America did not have to go
to Europe to find out what was good for her. These opin-
ions, cogently expressed during a tour which covered almost
every state in the Union, took great hold upon the minds of
the poorer classes, and enlisted also the support of many who
were not poor ; and vast multitudes in the middle and west-
ern states, and in some parts of the south, came together to
listen to Bryan, and seemed to regard him as a sort of savior
divinely appointed to rescue them from their troubles. The
Republicans rallied the support of the wealthy and conserva-
tive element, the men of property and vested interests, the
bankers and trust proprietors, and the employers in general
of labor. The campaign was as bitter as the previous one
had been apathetic ; and the result was in doubt till the last.
Then it appeared that McKinley, the Republican candidate,
was elected by a small majority, so far as the popular vote
was concerned.

The country now looked forward, too optimistically, to an
immediate reappearance of prosperity. We have learned
to live our personal lives so rapidly, and so many striking
events crowd upon one another in this age of electricity and
turmoil of governments, that we have become prone to im-

PAST AND FUTURE 1053

agine that effects in national affairs follow causes more
quickly than they used to do. But erroneous methods, or
partial solutions of economic problems, are not followed by
good results any more than they formerly were, nor are the
processes of evolution to be hurried because we are breathless
and impatient. The people that does not know its true way
does not get forward, no matter what its strength and ac-
tivity. Our attention has been turned of late years almost
exclusively to the expedition of business, and we are able,
individually, to conduct our business with as much prompti-
tude and efficiency as the conditions allow. But there are
great secrets in the chemistry of finance, labor and govern-
ment which have not yet been guessed; hitherto we have
got on well enough without fully guessing them ; but now
the adjustments of life are finer than they were, we are
confronted by hitherto untried situations, and we are conse-
quently arrested in a fog of perplexities and wanton experi-
ments. This nation has come to the end of one period of its
growth, and is arrived at the threshold of another. Fifty
or a hundred years from now we shall be able to look back
and understand the position we occupy at this moment ; and
we shall probably see, then, that not one new thing, but
many, awaited us. The next century may be expected to
be not only different, but very different from the last.

To speak in the broadest terms, what is needed seems
to be more of the spiritual quality in our affairs. There was
a spirit dominating us in the Seventeenth Century, which
drove us hither and anchored us in the wilderness ; there was
a spirit in 1776 which defended against oppression what we
had won; and there was a spirit in 1861 which labored fiercely
to rid our broad shoulders of the burden which stealthy ages
had bound upon them; and which succeeded, though the
knife with which we severed the bonds entered deep into our
own living flesh. But now, during the succeeding decades,
a great body of trade and industry has grown up, which is
as yet without an inner soul : it has no ruling and guiding

1054 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

spirit within it. It is a vast, inorganic mass, which only
seeks to grow bigger, instead of taking on intelligent form
and proportions, and discovering its own meaning and its
right to be. It is engendered of ambition and competition;
it aims at possession and enjoyment of life— the good things
of life: and this is no aim at all, nor can it ever be so; the
real good of life comes only while we seek better things and,
finding us with our eyes and hearts set elsewhere, suddenly
is revealed humbly moving at our side. The utmost that
commerce, agriculture, finance, government, science can
give us, is in itself not worth stooping to pick up ; the gar-
ment without the body is nothing, the body without the soul
is nothing, the soul without immortality is nothing. We
must learn the ultimate use and value of this vast accumula-
tion of things which we are gathering together, like slaves,
imagining ourselves masters of the world when we are its
helpless drudges and lackeys. We must develop a soul to
animate withal this huge corporeal mass of impedimenta,
of conveniences, luxuries, curiosities, redundancies. We
must lift it and organize it and rationalize it out of its pres-
ent abject and selfish sprawl, and cause it to occupy its
proper office and place in our human economy. Much of it
will then disappear as worthless or obstructive ; much more
will be regarded as incidental merely to the attainment of
better things. Material prosperity will become an instru-
ment of life, not its object. As we value it less, it will
become less irregular, more evenly distributed; not con-
gested arbitrarily here and there, with spaces of want and
misery between, but spread over the surface of the com-
munity like a comely skin or fitting garment. Our present
careers are prone to insanities, collisions and the cruelties of
neglect and preoccupation ; we need to consult each the in-
terest of his neighbor, as of his larger and completer self,
and therefore the self which merits most consideration and
ice. We cannot solve from below the problems which
now perplex us; we must rise to a height where they become

PAST AND FUTURE 1055

indifferent to us, and then we shall look down upon them
and understand them.

How shall this elevation be accomplished? — Not, if the
testimony of history be valid, by spinning theories or enun-
ciating moralities, however lofty and ingenious. Not by our
own ambition or initiative; but by an inward inspiration
from the Creator, to which it shall behoove us to give heed.
Work will be given us to do ; and according as we respond
to the stimulus and duty, will our future be. The faithful
and zealous prosecution of that work, be it what it may, will
open to us the larger and purer horizons for which we igno-
rantly languish. America has performed the first task laid
upon her — she has wrought herself into a great nation. An-
other task awaits her: what is it? — None can tell; but we
may surmise that it may be, to bear our part, a leading one,
in doing by others as we have done by ourselves. To make
an America of the world would be a worthy work, and one
which would collect our energies from their present waste
and dispersion, and apply them to the grandest issues. Did
God collect this people here, in order that they might live to
themselves alone, and leave their fellow creatures to welter
in darkness? Beware of that fatal policy of seclusion!
There are many plausible and soothing arguments in its
favor, but there is nothing Christian or immortal in it.
What we have, in measure as it is good, becomes not ours
exclusively, but somewhat held in stewardship for the race.
If we try to monopolize it, it will breed in us fever and cor-
ruption; if we dispense it, it will be a blessing universal.
Let us not forget that our forefathers said — ' ' We hold these
truths to be self-evident —that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalien-
able rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness." Were these words meant to apply only
to the three or four million human beings who at that time
constituted the civilized population of this continent? "All
men" was the word; and having secured the rights specified

1056 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

for ourselves, is it not incumbent upon us to seek in all ways
open to us to secure them for others? Nor need we go out
of our way to find opportunities ; they will be offered to us.
There is oppression and suffering on all sides of us, from
where the sun rises to where it sets. Only let us not stop
our ears to its voice, nor avert our eyes from the spectacle of
its misery. Let us rather stop our ears to those who tell us
it is none of our business, and avert our eyes from those who
would unroll before us alluring pictures of ease and luxury
kept within the boundaries of this mighty land, which God
gave us in trust, therein to raise a race of men whose destiny
it shall be to give freedom, light and happiness to the world.

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ROOSEVELT'S "ROUGH RIDERS" IN ACTION, NEAR SANTIAGO,

CUBA, JUNE, 1898

SUPPLEMENT

WAR WITH SPAIN

ELUSIONS to Spain have not been rare in the
preceding pages; for that nation is connected
with the earliest annals of our country. They
have been uniformly critical, because whatever
Spain has done in America has, from the first,
been evil. Her influence has always been ex-
erted on the side of oppression and against
enlightenment and liberty; it has been marked by cruelty
and selfishness. She has gained much wealth from her
American possessions, but it has not been honestly acquired,
and it has been expended for ill ends. Spain, in spite of her
opportunities, is now a bankrupt nation and a by-word of
reproach in Europe. She is not, in the modern sense, a civ-
ilized nation, but is still in many respects barbaric. In no
European nation is ignorance so prevalent as in Spain. None
is more brutal in its customs, or more narrow and perverse
in its aims. At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the hour
for her chastisement was ripe ; and destiny intrusted the duty
of administering it to the United States.

These facts are summarily stated; for we are not now
concerned to prove them by citing the leading events of
Spanish history. The geographical position of Spain, almost
as isolated by the Pyrenees as if it had been an island, is in
part responsible for her character and annals. She was nat-
urally maritime, owing to the extent of her coasts ; and pre-
vented from sharing the civilized advance of Europe, owing
U.S.— 45 Vol. III.

1058 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to her seclusion. But her coasts also laid her open to Moor-
ish conquest ; and from her conquerors she derived many of
her worst as well as most of her good traits. From the Moors
she learned courage and strength in war, and finally used it
to drive them from her confines; from them she drew the
imaginative quality which, for a time, made her famous in
literature. From them, also, she inherited the fantastic
cruelty, the love of blood, the animal lusts which from the
first have stained her records. But the Spaniard shows
the Moor degraded ; he is less noble than his dark-skinned
master, less generous, less highly organized. Socially and
politically he has always been corrupt. It is not too much
to say that, since their history begins, there has been no
female chastity in Spain, except by accident or under com-
pulsion ; nor any masculine honor, save that grotesque parody
of honor which Spaniards are quick to assert, and which,
with their "pride," renders them the solemn laughing-stock
of modern ages. Spanish rulers and the entire governing
class, have always been types of inhumanity, tyranny, and
greed. Religion has been to Spain but a means of oppression
and the infliction of misery on others. She was Catholic
with the rest of Europe; but her priests perceived in the
Church only an instrument of acquiring material aggrandize-
ment and power through spiritual terror and imposition ; and
with the establishment of the Inquisition she drove the last
nail into the coffin of her own future. For the true signifi-
cance and offices of Christianity, Spain has never betrayed
the faintest comprehension or inclination. In the name of
Christ she has exterminated populations, and shed more blood
than runs in the veins of all living Spaniards to-day. Spain
and Turkey, at opposite ends of Europe, are alike anachro-
nisms; and it has been only the mutual jealousies of the rest
of Europe that has permitted them to survive so long. Eu-
rope has her duty by the Moslem still to do ; but we found
the burden of Spain laid upon our shoulders ; and during the
last few months, at a cost to ourselves that seems miracu-

SHORTENING SAIL ON THE U. S. CRUISEK "LANCASTER," THE
OLDEST VESSEL IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY

I *" *wOX ANO
NDATION8.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1059

lously small, we have been dealing with it in a manner which
leaves little yet to do.

The true story of Cuba has yet to be written in its
inner details; one does not envy the historian his task. It
is a monotonous tale of baseness, robbery, and inhuman-
ity. First, and promptly, the native population was extermi-
nated ; then a new race began to exist, compounded of Span-
iards and negroes, with an admixture of other strains in
minor degrees. This race, in the course of some centuries,
begot characteristics of its own ; but it was always oppressed
by the Spanish governing class sent over from the Penin-
sula. We have seen how England attempted to tyrannize
over her American colonies, and how selfish and short-sighted
were the laws she tried to impose upon us. But the worst
that we suffered was mildness compared with the normal
situation in Cuba; and the Cubans lacked the Anglo-Saxon
passion for liberty and independence which marked the men
of New England and Virginia. Individual industry and
enterprise were discouraged or paralyzed, because the gov-
ernors from Spain left the native producers barely enough
for the needs of existence. Cuba, potentially rich as any
region of equal extent in the world, and richer by far than
all save a few, has never yielded a hundredth part of the
returns which could have been realized by an enlightened
administration. Nevertheless, she and the other island colo-
nies of Spain, east and west, have been of vital use to her in
arresting the downward course which she has so long been
pursuing; Spain's life, such as it was, depended on them;
and now that they are to be withdrawn, sentence of death
upon their former owner has been passed. Even were her
domestic politics favorable — and they are at the furthest
remove from that — she has no internal resources to ade-
quately meet her expenses, to say nothing of her indebted*
ness to others ; and she seems likely to become the mendi-
cant of Europe for generations to come, and finally to vanish
from the roster of distinct nations, more completely than

1060 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Hungary or Poland. It is a terrible punishment; but it has
been well merited.

The Cubans endured much; but at length even their
limits were overpassed, and they rebelled. They had before
them the example of free America; and even the quasi-
liberty of the so-called republics of Spanish- America was an
object of envy to them. The topography and climate of their
island made it difficult to subdue them, though, on the other
hand, they were powerless to drive out the Spaniards; and
the consequence was a long-drawn-out and inconclusive
struggle of ten years, exhausting to both parties. It ended
in a compromise, by which Cuba was to receive certain con-
cessions, including representation in the Spanish Cortes ; but
no real advantage accrued from Spanish promises, and the
abuses and cruelties became more virulent than ever. The
United States was restive under this chronic sore, festering
close under her eyes ; and during the past half century vari-
ous schemes and suggestions have been mooted having in
view the taking or purchasing Cuba from Spain. . But the
feeling was strong in this country against saddling ourselves
with a possession which, rich though it was, was encum-
bered by many objectionable features; and Spain herself
evinced the strongest disinclination to relinquishing the vic-
tim whose blood she had sucked so long. The rebellion
ended in 1878. Several American agencies were operating
in the island, and drawing large profits from their invest-
ments ; and there were not a few American holders of Span-
ish securities guaranteed by Cuban duties. These persons
were naturally content that Spain should retain control of
Cuba, since in the event of the island being taken from her,
the value of their securities would be extinguished. Great
European financiers, like the Rothschilds, were interested in
Spanish supremacy for the same reason ; and because they
were in the habit of assisting our banking and capitalistic
class with loans and accommodations for their enterprises,
they were able to exert great influence upon the attitude of

WAR WITH SPAIN 1061

the latter ; so that it was certain that war with Spain would
always find resolute opponents in our moneyed men. An-
other apologist or champion of Spain was the Roman See;
because, when Spain, in the fore part of the century, confis-
cated church property in her colonies, compensation was
made by the issue of interest bearing bonds to the amount
of some hundreds of millions of dollars, which were held by
the Church. If Spain, through war, were to become utterly
bankrupt, these bonds would be worthless, and the Church
in that amount a loser. Finally, Austria and France were
both anxious to protect Spain; France because she was a
large holder of Spanish 4's, and Austria because the Queen
Regent of Spain was a member of the Austrian Eoyal
House. The Queen's son, Alphonso, was ostensibly, of
course, the son of Christina and the late king; though
strong doubts have been cast on the purity of his descent,
on the paternal side.

Spain, therefore, like other nations and persons before
her, depended for her maintenance upon the consequences
of her own misdeeds, and inability to govern herself. And
doubtless no other European nation, or combination, would
have thought it worth while to interfere with her. But in
the United States there is a vast body of persons who detest
outrage and injustice for their own sakes, and when they
are thrust too impudently into their field of vision, will de-
mand that the nuisance be abated. These persons have no
regard for international etiquette, or for compromises, or for
Spanish pride ; but they hate to see inoffensive and helpless
people starved and murdered, with accompaniments of the
most revolting brutality. Consequently when, for the sec-
ond time, the Cubans broke out in revolt, there was heard
a voice in this country, speaking from every part of it, de-
manding that the iniquity of Spanish misrule cease, and
insisting that we bring about its cessation, peaceably if
we could, forcibly if we must. This voice had nothing to
say about the acquisition of Cuba by the United States; no

1062 HISTORY CF THE UNITED STATES

such burden was desired; but Spain must concede freedom
to her colony, and abstain henceforward and forever from
torturing and robbing it.

So long as this voice was not official, Spain paid no heed to
it ; not being aware that the real official voice in the United
States is the voice of the American people, which first speaks
for itself, and afterward, if its hints are not attended to,
utters itself through the mouth of its official representatives.
But Spain was again failing to put down the rebellion,
which, instead of being confined, as in the former one, to
the eastern part of the island, had spread to the west, and
left to the Spaniards only those towns in which Spanish sol-
diers were stationed. Immense numbers of soldiers — two
hundred thousand, if accounts are to be credited — had been
sent to Cuba ; but they did no fighting worthy of the name,
and were not intended to do any ; they were mainly to serve
as a means for the enrichment of their officers, who appro-
priated all the money sent out to pay them, or otherwise
available for that purpose, except just so much as might
serve to keep the soldiers alive. It was the policy of the
Spanish officials not to fight the war out, but to prolong it;
and gradually to exterminate the Cuban population. The
Captain- general first in command, Martinez Campos, was
recalled after a year of unsuccess, and in his place was in-
stalled General Weyler, the catalogue of whose crimes and
bestialities perhaps surpasses that of any living being, and
who has never been outdone even by his own countrymen
in the past. He is the man who caused Cuban ladies to be
haled naked to his room, who there witnessed their rape by
his soldiery, and who answered their appeals for mercy by
kicking and stamping upon them, and tearing their flesh
with his spurred heels. These women and maids had done
nothing to offend him, except to be the wives and daughters
of Cubans who were suspected of disaffection to Spain, or
who had failed to deliver to the general the amount of
money which he had chosen to think they possessed. We

WAR WITH SPAIN 1063

need not further detail Weyler's crimes; they were given
full rein during his lease of power; he was the idol and
model of his followers, and he and they became rich to the
extent of many millions by the theft of money not only from
the Cubans, but from embezzlement of the sums sent from
Spain for the prosecution of the war. From first to last, no
one has been found to relate of this monster one single re-
deeming trait.

With a view to hastening the extermination of the Cuban
race, Weyler conceived and put in execution an idea which
could occur only to one whose thoughts found their inspira-
tion in the source of all evil. It was on the 21st of October
that he issued the famous order of reconcentration. — "I order
and command that all the inhabitants of the country now
outside of the line of fortification of the towns, shall, within
the period of eight days, concentrate themselves in the town
so occupied by the troops. Any individual who after the
expiration of this period is found in the uninhabited parts
will be considered a rebel and tried as such."

There were then living in the regions neighboring to the
towns in question persons whose number has been variously
estimated at from four hundred to six hundred thousand.
Most of them were women and children. They were of all
social grades, from the peasant to the independent proprie-
tor. Weyler's order caused them to abandon their homes
and crowd into a barren space around the towns, where they
must remain without other shelter than what they could
erect with their own hands, without furniture or any of the
appurtenances of civilization, without food, or any means of
obtaining any save by beggary. Beggary from the soldiers
of Weyler was not a lucrative occupation. Such of the
women or virgins as had the ill-fortune to be passably good-
looking were subjected to the lust of the soldiery in the open
camp. The homes which these people had been compelled
to leave were destroyed by the Spanish guerrillas, and the
lands laid waste. If any inhabitants were found still hiding

1064 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

in the outer country, which was constantly scoured by the
guerrillas, they were hacked to death with the machete,
shot, or subjected to lingering tortures. Many were mur-
dered for amusement even while obeying the reconcent ra-
tion order. But the great majority were permitted slowly
to starve to death on the bare ground outside the towns.
The process lasted days or weeks according to circum-
stances, and was attended with every circumstance of in-
sult and mental anguish. They perished in heaps and rows,
and their bones — for flesh there was little or none left — were
tossed into pits, or left to be devoured by vultures. Half a
million reconcentrados had been removed in this manner
at the time that war was declared between Spain and the
United States; and there can be no doubt that the remain-
der long since ceased to exist. The story was told again
and again by the press, but the very horror of it restrained
belief . The reports of our consuls were suppressed. Wey-
ler's campaign, as he facetiously termed it, seemed likely to
continue unchecked, within six hours of the highest and
most humane civilization of the world. Why was the effort
made to keep our people in ignorance of the truth, and to
delay action? Because, should the facts appear, the hold-
ers of Spanish securities in this country, and their friends
abroad, would lose their money. This fact should not be
forgotten by Americans, when the time shall come to bring
before the court of public opinion, for reward or punishment,
the persons and parties by whom the war with Spain was
advocated or opposed. It is also historically significant as
showing the extent and weight of the influence which
money is able to exert, for a time, upon the conduct of
this Republic.

Before the end of his Presidential term, Cleveland had
said, in one of his messages, referring to the Cuban situa-
tion, that higher obligations than those of neutrality might
be imposed on us by the manner in which Spain was prose-
cuting her war in Cuba. The time chosen for this utterance

WAR WITH SPAIN 1065

was shortly before the Presidential canvass which was to
determine whether or not Mr. Cleveland was to be his own
successor. Since he retired to private life, he has expressed
himself as strongly opposed to our war against Spain for
the liberation of Cuba. Any man may honestly change his
opinion, and the time to pass judgment on the men con-
cerned directly or indirectly with this war has not yet ar-
rived; but it was unfortunate for Mr. Cleveland, and the
many whose record in this respect resembles his, that he
and they are affiliated with persons whose financial interest
it was that Spain should be left undisturbed. It is natural
and even commendable for a man to be solicitous to save his
property, and to aid his friends to save theirs ; but there are
limits to be observed even here ; and it is generally conceded
that money bought at the expense of condoning such crimes
as those of Weyler, is expensive. Moreover, if a man decide
to oppose a given line of action, such as our Cuban war, in
order to secure his holdings of stock and bonds, it is expedi-
ent that he declare frankly his true reasons ; it is unwise for
him to attempt to disguise them by putting forward humani-
tarian pleas, as that war is an evil, a barbarism which should
be out of date; and that the United States should meddle
with no affairs not directly her political concern, on pain of
violating the Constitution, and the maxims of Washington,
Jefferson and Monroe. A miser may be respectable ; but a
miser who hides his greed under the guise of philanthropy
and loyalty to high political or other principles, falls into an
error which time will surely reveal to him and to others. —
We must not, however, neglect to notice the existence among
us, and in all communities, of that timorous but strictly
honest conservative instinct which clings to the methods and
traditions of the past, and dreads any departure toward new
ways and ideas. Of such we number many in our most
respectable societies; and they swelled the number of the
Peace-at-any-Price men who joined in the outcry against the
war with Spain on behalf of Cuba.

1066 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

When McKinley was elected President, the platform on
which he stood referred to the existing war with Cuba in
terms which favored the supposition that, should the horrors
alleged prove to be true, this country would interfere in the
cause of humanity. For some time, however, the insistence
of matters of domestic concern, and other reasons, produced
a certain sluggishness or apathy in regard to Cuban affairs.
But stories of Spanish brutality still continued to appear in
the press ; and there was one story in particular of a young
Cuban girl of beauty and social position, Evangelina de
Cisneros by name, who had been captured under painful
circumstances, and whose ruin had been attempted by a
Spanish officer and friend of Weyler's. Because this girl
had resisted violation, she was imprisoned in the common
jail in Havana with the dregs of the population, and had
been condemned to a Spanish penal colony, where her fate
would be death, preceded by a fate far worse than death
itself. This tale struck the imagination of our people, and
diplomatic efforts were made to induce Weyler to surrender
her — of course without effect. At that juncture she was
rescued from her jail by a young journalist named Karl
Decker, representing a New York paper ; and the boldness
and dash of his exploit strongly enlisted American sympa-
thies, and led to closer scrutiny of Spanish doings in Cuba.
Finally, a number of members of Congress undertook a trip
to Cuba to investigate for themselves; and their report,
when delivered, fully corroborated the worst stories printed
for a year past in the newspapers.

Meanwhile, Weyler had retired from the Captain-gen-
eral cy of Cuba, and had been succeeded by General Blanco,
who ostensibly proceeded to put forward a policy of mercy
and autonomy. Cubans were to be permitted to govern
themselves, under Spanish supervision; the reconcentrados
still surviving should be at liberty to return to their homes.
This concession on Spain's part was due to the representa-
tions of the holders of Spanish securities, who convinced

WAR WITH SPAIN 1067

the Spanish government that the American people could not
much longer be held in check, and that if war were to be
avoided, some appearance at least of conforming to the dic-
tates of humanity must be made. But the hollowness of the
concession was almost immediately apparent. The Cubans
themselves, taught by bitter experience, repudiated the au-
tonomy pretense, and pointed out that the conditions under
which Spain claimed rights of supervision were amply sum" -
cient to insure a continuance of every abuse of which they
now complained. As for the relaxation of the rules govern-
ing the reconcentrados, it soon transpired that it concealed
a sinister motive. Most of these unfortunates were too far
gone in starvation and despair to avail themselves of the
permission to return to their homes; those who did return
found them burned to the ground; and while they were
debating what next to do, they were set upon by the bands
of guerrillas and slaughtered in cold blood. In a word,
Weyler's policy was in no degree revoked; it was only
prosecuted under a hypocritical disguise by his successor.
All hope for Cubans, except by direct intervention of the
United States, was at an end.

Before this time, indeed, the mass of our people had come
to the conclusion that war could be avoided only by the re-
tirement of Spain from Cuba definitely and forever. It was
impossible for us to stand by and see these horrors accom-
plished without raising a hand to prevent it. "While there
was still a doubt as to the truth of the reports, we might
hesitate; but that doubt was dissipated, and action must fol-
low— or the disgrace of having refrained from action under
such circumstances — a disgrace to which Americans refused
to submit. We were, however, willing to let the war ini
tiative come from Spain ; we insisted only on relieving the
reconcentrados at once, with supplies which we furnished.
About the same time, our fleet began to gather together at
Key West, and in other places neighboring to Cuba and the
West Indies; and a number of our ships, under Dewey, was

1068 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

known to be off the Chinese coast, within a few days' sail
of the Spanish colony of the Philippines, which had also been
in revolt, for causes similar to those which animated the Cu-
bans. In January, one of our warships, the "Maine," was
sent to the harbor of Havana, nominally on a friendly visit,
on the same basis as that on which the "Vizcaya" was even
then preparing to visit New York Harbor. But it was un-
derstood in this country that the "Maine" was intended to
inspire the Spaniards in Cuba with respect for the Ameri-
cans living there at the time ; and to secure safety for the
agents who were conveying our consignments of food to the
reconcentrados. For it would have been manifestly futile
to intrust to Spanish hands the distribution of these supplies ;
and on the other hand the lives of Americans were not safe
in Havana and the neighboring towns; even the consuls,
Consul-general Fitz Hugh Lee not excepted, were more or
less in peril. But after the arrival of the "Maine," a distinct
improvement in the Spanish bearing toward Americans was
noticeable ; and Miss Clara Barton, who had come to oversee
and direct the relief of the starving people, was treated with
courtesy and permitted to carry out, in some degree, her
measures of mercy. At the same time, beneath this surface
courtesy, was readily observable an undercurrent of hatred
and covert menace; and the presence of the "Maine" was
evidently most irksome to the population of Havana. A
word let fall by the Spanish consul in Key West at this time
— that it needed but a turn of the hand to send the "Maine"
to hell, with all on board — was remembered afterward.

Let us now consider the physical position of the "Maine"
in Havana Harbor. This harbor — though the fact was not
known, however keenly suspected, previous to the 15th of
February, 1898 — was sown with mines, as they are techni-
cally called : a kind of bombs filled with gun-cotton, dyna-
mite, or other explosives, connected with the shore by wires,
and exploded at any desired moment by turning on an elec-
trical current through the wire. An Englishman named

WAR WITH SPAIN 1069

Gibbons testified to having supplied a number of mines to
the Spanish government for use in Havana Harbor ; and an
American, Crandall, admitted having laid mines in that
harbor in 1896, at the order of General Weyler. In July of
the next year, at Weyler 's special direction, he laid a large
mine close to buoy number 4, in the center of the harbor.
This mine, if touched by the keel of a vessel lying over it,
would reveal the fact automatically at the keyboard on
shore; and a person on the watch there would then only
have to touch a button, in order to discharge the mine and
destroy the vessel. Access to the keyboard could be had
only by officers in the confidence of the Spanish authorities.
All this, of course, was entirely legitimate as a measure of
harbor defense; but it is to be remarked that the Cubans
had no navy, and that the planting of mines in Havana
Harbor could therefore have had no reference to them. On
the other hand, there was no nation except the American
from which the Spaniards had any reason to anticipate hos-
tile action.

Such was the setting of the scene when the "Maine"
entered Havana Harbor. Captain Sigsbee was proceeding
to choose his own anchorage, when he was directed by the
harbor-master, acting under the directions of the Captain-
general, to station his ship at buoy No. 4. He of course
complied, and the "Maine" remained attached to that buoy
until the moment when the mine placed there was exploded,
and blew her up. This event occurred on the night of the
15th of February, about nine o'clock, when the major part
of the crew was below in their hammocks; and two hundred
and sixty-six officers and men were killed, and the ship her-
self utterly destroyed.

The survivors on the ship, and all disinterested persons
who were cognizant of the conditions, were at once con-
vinced that the catastrophe was not the result of chance.
The mining of the harbor was known, although it had uni-
formly been denied by the Spaniards; and it had been a

io/o HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

topic of common gossip among the men of the "Maine,"
that there was a mine under her bottom. Threats to blow
her up had several times been heard from Spaniards in Ha-
vana ; and when the deed had been done, there was slight
attempt to disguise the feeling of joy which it caused in the
city. Spanish officers, meeting in the cafes, toasted one
another on the success of the coup. The hand of some
Spanish officer, connected with the Weyler interest, had
probably done the deed; but, of course, there was an imme-
diate official disavowal of it, Meanwhile, the American flag
was hoisted over the remains of our ship, and an investiga-
tion was begun, to determine by direct and scientific evi-
dence the cause of the explosion. The court of investiga-
tion consisted of United States officers, who went to Havana
for the purpose ; divers were sent down to examine the shat-
tered hull ; great secrecy was observed as to the results of
the examination, and the sittings of the board were pro-
longed for no less than forty days. Less than a fourth as
many would have amply sufficed; but there were reasons
for the delay : first, in order to give time for the Pope and
the other creditors of Spain to try to influence Congress
against war; and secondly, to afford us time to get ready
for possible hostilities. The story of the negotiations behind
the scenes may yield interesting reading at some future
epoch; for the present, their tenor can only be conjectured.
The Peace-at-any-Price party put forth their most desperate
efforts; and Mr. McKinley's attitude was ambiguous. If he
desired to be assured of the true attitude of the country before
acting, he was not left in doubt. The sense of outrage was
marked on all sides, and it became daily more obvious that
no tampering with the situation would be permitted. The
Peace party protested that it was impossible to believe, or
to prove, that the act had been committed deliberately by
Spain, because, first, Spain denied it; secondly, such a thing
in time of peace was unheard of; and again, because the
chances were that Spain was right in her contention that

WAR WITH SPAIN 107 1

the explosion was occasioned by the negligence of the men
and officers on the American ship, and was due to touching
off one of the magazines on board. But the great mass of
the American people, whose opinions were not controlled by
considerations of politics or finance, and who were aware
that the destruction of the "Maine" in the manner charged
was anything but inconsistent with Spain's conduct at all
periods in her history, was convinced of the truth from the
first; and "Remember the 'Maine' " became a watchword
everywhere. American Roman Catholics, from all sides,
evinced the heartiest patriotism; and Archbishop Ireland's
request to the President that opportunity be given for the
Vatican to plead with Spain to evacuate Cuba, was honor-
able and Christian ; it is the duty of the Church to oppose
war — though, as the sequel has shown, the loss of life in
this war falls vastly below the mortality which the delay
enabled Blanco and his men to inflict upon the surviving
reconcentrados. But this, of course, was hidden from the
Archbishop.

When, at length, the report of the Court was allowed to
appear, it bore out to the full the worst anticipations. Every
part and fragment of the wreck had been scrutinized by
experts, and they all indicated a force applied externally,
and from below upward. The Spanish authorities after-
ward made a perfunctory examination, lasting a few days,
and announced, in the face of the evidence, that the explo-
sion was from within ; but the manifest falsity of this con-
clusion only went to show, not only that a mine destroyed
the "Maine," but that the firing of the mine was deliberate
on Spain's part. Her profession of a willingness to submit
the matter to arbitration was regarded as an insult ; and her
pointblank refusal to make restitution made an appeal to
arms inevitable, quite aside from the question of the recon-
centrados. Yet there were Peace men still found to declare
that the Court of Inquiry had proved nothing against Spain,
and that no justifiable grounds for war existed. Prominent

1072 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

among these persons, in New England, was Mr. Charles
Eliot Norton, a professor of Harvard College, who declared
in a speech to the students that war would be an infamy.
But the patriotism of Harvard had been proved in the Civil
War, and was not likely to be wanting now.

The President sent the report to Congress, with comments
thereon, which by many were thought unduly conservative;
and in the message which he issued April 11th, asking au-
thority to use the military and naval forces of the United
States to compel Spain to evacuate Cuba, he based his request
on Spanish inhumanity to Cubans, and on her inability to
conquer them; and not upon the destruction of the " Maine. "
This was no doubt due to lack of technical proof that it was
by Spanish officers, acting in connivance with the Havana
authorities, that the explosion was produced. The certainty
was a moral one; but it was desirable to eliminate every
ground of criticism from our proceedings. It was in the
name of humanity, therefore, that this country finally de-
clared war.

After a few days of animated debate, a joint resolution
of the two Houses of Congress was promulgated, which,
after calling attention to conditions which had for three years
existed in Cuba, characterizing them as a disgrace to civiliza-
tion, and remarking that they had culminated "in the de-
struction of a United States battleship, with 266 of its officers
and crew, while on a friendly visit to the harbor of Havana, ' '
goes on to declare that the Cubans are and of right ought to
be free and independent; that it was our duty to demand
that Spain at once relinquish authority in the island and
withdraw its forces therefrom; that the President be empow-
ered to use the entire land and naval power of the United
States, and to call out the militia, to effect these ends; and
that the United States "hereby disclaims any disposition or
intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over
said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts
its determination when that is accomplished to leave the gov-

WAR WITH SPAIN 1073

ernment and control of the island to its people." Not for
conquest, profit, or aggrandizement did we undertake this
war, but purely for the sake of averting murder and robbery,
and in order to give a brave people civil liberty. A more
disinterested and honorable war was never undertaken ; and
it was strictly in harmony with the traditions and mission of
America. The date of the above resolutions was April 19th
— a day already famous in our annals.

Already measures having a warlike tendency had been
taken both by Spain and by the United States. A Spanish
fleet was being gathered at the Cape Yerde Islands, which
belong to Portugal, as early as the 2d of April ; numbers of
Spaniards in Havana had enlisted in the volunteers; the
President had replied to representatives of six European
powers (expressing a hope that peace might be preserved),
that the war of Spain on the Cubans must cease; Consul-
general Lee was recalled from Havana, together with other
Americans living in Cuba; the Spanish Cabinet, on April
13th, voted an extraordinary war-credit; orders to concen-
trate our fleets were issued, and several war vessels were
purchased in Europe. On the 15th of April England de-
clared coal contraband of war; on the 19th, troops were
moved from various garrisons to Chickamauga Park, whence
lines of railway radiate to the southern Atlantic coast, and
to ports on the Gulf of Mexico; on the 20th our ultimatum
was cabled to Spain, and on the 21st, before Woodford, our
minister at Madrid, had delivered it to the Spanish govern-
ment, he was given his passports and escorted out of the
country. On the same day, the fleet under Sampson was
ordered to proceed to blockade Havana, and the foreign
governments were duly notified. Dewey was directed to
proceed to Manila, in the Philippines; and on April 26th,
McKinley issued a call for one hundred and twenty-five
thousand volunteers, apportioning to each state its quota.
Three days before this Sampson's squadron had captured
a Spanish prize steamer, the "Buen Ventura," which was

1074 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

entering Key West in ignorance that the war had begun.
The shot which caused her to bring to was fired by Patrick
Walton, on board the United 'States ship ''Nashville," about
half-past five in the morning.

At this time, neither nation was fully prepared for war,
though Spain had been urging preparations ever since Jan-
uary ; but she had perhaps doubled whether we really meant
to fight, being misled by the vociferousness of the Peace
party. The European powers were divided in their sym-
pathies, France and Austria favoring Spain, as did also a
part of the German press ; while Italy was disposed to adopt
a friendly attitude toward us, and Russia intimated that she
had nothing to object to in our course. England, however
(although, in common with the rest, declaring a strict neu-
trality), took occasion in various ways to express a cordial
friendship for the United States, and entire approval of our
course. It was semi-officially intimated that an alliance
would not be unwelcome to England, in the event of any
other power siding with Spain against us ; and a great deal
was said about the bonds of kinship binding together the two
great English-speaking peoples. Americans, as a whole, met
these advances in a spirit of cheerful recognition, though
permitting the inference that friendship rather than a regular
alliance would meet our view of the greatest expediency.
We thought ourselves well able to take care of Spain with-
out assistance ; and it was generally felt that, in the long
run, England might profit more by an alliance with us than
we should. But all this was premature; and the sickening
sentimentality of poets on both sides, who instantly broke
into a piping chorus of mutual congratulation at the pros-
pect of the great Anglo-Saxon bond, probably was of service
in making sensible persons shy of committing themselves too
far. But the future of Europe is dark, if not ominous, and
this war might easily cause us to take a far more intimate
share in coming events on the other side of the oceans than
we had lately believed possible. In that case, it seems rea-

WAR WITH SPAIN 1075

sonable that England and America would be found standing
side by side.

The navies of Spain and of the United States were con-
sidered by experts to be about equal, with a slight prepon-
derance in favor of Spain. Of trained soldiers under arms
Spain undoubtedly had by far the greater number ; and the
remark was already being made that she would have a
powerful ally against us in Cuba, in the shape of the yel-
low fever, which would be due about the time fighting in
the island began. It was conceded that after the first
months of the war, America would begin to gain, owing
to her enormous superiority in resources of men and money;
but it was thought that, meanwhile, Spain might be able to
inflict staggering losses on us by sending a swift fleet to
bombard our great seacoast cities, and collecting ransom.
Indeed, there was something approaching a panic in some
of these exposed places, and regrets were freely expressed
that, in time of peace, we had not prepared for war. As it
turned out, there was never any danger from the Spanish
fleet, which was presently to prove itself incapable of either
enterprise or fighting ability. But had we been opposed by
the navy of any other power, we might no doubt have been
forced to pay a fearful price for our neglect.

But if the Spanish fleet could not fight or attack, it could
puzzle us sorely as to its whereabout and intentions. After
collecting at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, it remained
there as long as the dilatory tactics of Portugal, which was
the last of the nations to declare neutrality, would permit.
It finally set sail in a westerly direction ; but it might be
aiming at any point of our coast; and reports of "phantom
fleets" seen or heard of at the most diverse points began to
come in. Now mysterious ships were seen off Nova Scotia ;
now they were approaching New York, now Boston, or
Charleston; or they were descending in force on Havana,
or they were sailing to cut off our battleship "Oregon,"
which had started from San Francisco, and was now com-

1076 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

ing up the coast of South America. Until we could know
which of these several points to protect, we could form no
definite plan of campaign ; and thus Spain kept us guessing
for what seemed a long time. Suddenly the report was sent
with every sign of authority that the fleet had returned to
Cadiz, Spain, and had given up the idea of crossing the At-
lantic. But shortly after, it was heard of from Martinique,
and its destination was surmised to be Cienfuegos, on the
south coast of Cuba. If we could intercept it, a naval bat-
tle might be expected off the coast of Porto Rico. Schley,
who had been on guard at Hampton Roads, was sent to the
west end of Cuba, on the chance of the fleet's appearing
there; while Sampson, after testing the defenses of San
Juan, Porto Rico, by a short bombardment of its forts on
May 12th, repaired to the Windward Passage, east of Cuba,
in the hope of catching the Spanish fleet on its way north or
west. Study of the map made it seem impossible that Cer-
vera's ships could escape; but the feat was not so difficult
in the actual waters of the Caribbean; and on May 19th the
report was disseminated that the Spaniards were safe in the
landlocked harbor of Santiago de Cuba.

Long previous to this date, however, several skirmishes
by land and sea had taken place on the Cuban coast, and
one great and memorable naval battle had been fought and
won in the bay of remote Manila. The skirmishes are inter-
esting chiefly as having bestowed their baptism of fire upon
our soldiers and sailors ; the losses were trifling, and the re-
sults unimportant. On the 27th of April the earthworks at
Matanzas, about sixty miles east of Havana, were bombarded
for fifteen minutes by the "New York," "Puritan" and "Cin-
cinnati," of Sampson's squadron. The first gun was fired
from the waist of the "New York" by Ensign Boone, one
of the cadets who had been sent to the front from Annapolis
before the regular time of graduation. The earthworks were
d<>troyed, and it was supposed that the enemy suffered some
losses ; no one was injured on the American ships. On April

WAR WITH SPAIN 1077

29th, a force of Spanish cavalry near Port Cabanas was dis-
persed by the "New York." On May 11th, while Sampson
was on the Porto Rican coast, there occurred at Cardenas an
engagement which was notable as being the first in the war
in which Americans were killed by the enemy. There were
concerned in this affair two gunboats, the "Machias" and
the "Wilmington," under Commanders Merry and Todd;
the converted revenue cutter "Hudson," Lieutenant New-
comb, and the torpedo boat "Winslow," under Lieutenant
Bernadou. It had been discovered that there were in Car-
denas Harbor three Spanish gunboats ; but the waters were
so shallow that not all of the American vessels could ma-
neuver within, and a partially successful attempt was made,
on the 8th of May, to draw the Spaniards out. On the 11th
the "Hudson" and the "Winslow" undertook to run into
the harbor and engage the gunboats where they lay off the
wharf of Cardenas town. The harbor had been buoyed in
places in order to fix the range, and as the "Winslow,"
which was in front, passed amid these buoys, she was hit
by guns from the shore, -and Bernadou was wounded in the
leg. He bandaged his wound, and continued to direct his
ship ; but meanwhile another shot had broken the steering-
gear of the "Winslow," and others passed through the boiler
and disabled one of the engines. By the aid of the other
engine, moving the vessel alternately backward and for-
ward, it was found possible to get out of the region of the
buoys ; and Ensign Worth Bagley was stationed amidships
to pass orders to the engineer below. The "Winslow" had
all this while been firing her one-pounders continuously.
The "Hudson," a slower ship, had meanwhile arrived with-
in hailing distance, and Bernadou asked her to tow his ship
out of the harbor. Up to this moment, no one except Ber-
nadou had been hit, though ten shells had struck his boat.
But while the "Hudson" was trying to pass a line, a shell
struck in the midst of a group of men standing near Bagley.
Three were killed at once, including Bagley ; two more died

1078 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

soon after, and five were wounded ; thus putting nearly half
of the whole crew hors de combat. The "Hudson" suc-
ceeded in passing a line, but it broke, or was shot in two;
and the same mishap happened to the second. The "Hud-
son" then went alongside the "Winslow," made fast to her,
and in this manner took her out of range ; while the ' ' Wil-
mington, ' ' from outside, destroyed the Spanish gunboat ly-
ing by the wharf, and silenced all the shore batteries. It is
a singular fact that more American seamen were killed in
this little incidental skirmish than in all the other naval en-
gagements of the war combined. The behavior of all the
men in action was daring and cool throughout, and suf-
ficed to show, without Dewey's superb demonstration,
that the spirit of the American navy was all that it had
ever been.

On the very next day there was a sharp little affair at
Cabanas Harbor, on the other side of Havana, which was
notable as being the first occasion on which troops were
landed and engaged with the Spaniards. Two compa-
nies, E and G, of the First United States Infantry, were
ordered on board the transport "Gussie" to carry three
Cuban scouts, Major Donato Soto and two others, to some
point on the Cuban coast, to communicate with the insur-
gent armies in the interior. A week was spent in running
up and down the north shore, looking for a good landing-
place ; but the Spaniards were found everywhere actively on
the lookout; a place near Cabanas was finally decided upon,
though here also there were signs of the enemy, and in fact
two thousand Spanish troops were posted at the town ; but,
at the time of the landing, most of these were engaged in
repelling an attack from an insurgent force on the other side.
Company G was left on board the transport; to Company E
was accorded the honor of landing in the face of the enemy's
fire, the operation being covered by Company G firing from
behind a breastwork of bales of hay on the transport, assisted
by the gunboats "Wasp" and "Manning," accompanying

WAR WITH SPAIN 1079

the expedition. Captain O'Connell was in command of the
landing force.

At the moment of getting the men into the landing
boats, a heavy tropical rain began to fall, and continued its
deluge until after the landing was accomplished, accom-
panied by gusts of wind which threw up a choppy sea.
Midway to the shore the men had to jump out on a reef
and lift the boats across it, while exposed to the Spanish
fire, which was copious, but did no damage. Reaching, at
length, a thickly wooded point, the men were formed in
skirmish line, with twenty paces between each of them. At
a bridge, a little distance inland, the enemy was encoun-
tered, and retreated after exchanging a volley. The en-
gagement then extended along the entire front of the ad-
vance, but, as usual, the enemy could not be seen. The
Americans held the line until the Cuban scouts, in the rear,
had saddled and mounted their horses, and passed round
the flank into the interior country; whence they returned
a month later, having obtained and communicated valuable
information. While the line was held, or for about half an
hour, the two gunboats and the transport were unable to
give any assistance, lest their fire might fall among our own
men, who, like the Spaniards, were invisible; but after the
scouts had escaped, the line was withdrawn toward the
shore, and placed behind a hasty intrenchment ; and then
the boats opened fire and put the enemy to flight. No
Americans were killed, but many Spanish dead were found
after the engagement. The men were safely re-embarked
before the regiments in Cabanas fort had arrived at the
scene of action. They seem to have looked over the ground
after we had left it, and to have reported to General Blanco,
in Havana, a great Spanish victory.

But it is more than time that we cross, the Continent, and
the Pacific, and follow the doings of Admiral Dewey at the

1080 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Philippines. He was at that moment a commodore ; but after
the 1st of May he suddenly received an admiral's rank; and
the cause of it was as follows. — On the 26th of April he re-
ceived a cablegram order from the President, directing him
to " capture or destroy" the Spanish fleet in Pacific waters.
On the 27th he sailed from Mirs Bay, on the Chinese coast,
prepared to carry out the order. Dewey, it appears, had
long ago foreseen that there would be opportunity for work
on the Pacific station, and had applied for the assignment ;
and ever since he had been carefully studying the situa-
tion. His squadron consisted of two transports, "Zafiro"
and "Nanshan," laden with coal, and stores enough for
six months; four cruisers, one of which, the "Boston," was
partially protected, while the three others, the "Olympia,"
the " "Raleigh" and the " Baltimore," were protected; two
gunboats, the "Concord" and the "Petrel," and a revenue
cutter, the "McCulloch." Thus there were seven fighting
ships in all, though the "McCulloch," being very lightly
armed, and unprotected, did not take part in the engage-
ment. The armament was fifty-seven big guns, including
ten 8 inch and seventy-four rapid-fire and machine guns.

The Spanish force against which this squadron was to
fight numbered one wooden and six steel protected and iron
cruisers, five gunboats and two torpedo boats ; the largest of
their guns were not above 6.2-inch, and none of their ships
was so large as the "Olympia" or the "Baltimore" — which
measured, respectively, 5,870 and 4,600 tons. On the other
hand, the Spaniards had the advantage in numbers, and a
great advantage in the guns mounted in Cavite and the
shore batteries, many of which were 10-inch, and of the
best modern make. The harbor was also sown with mine-
fields and torpedoes; but only one or two of these were ex-
ploded during the engagement, and they did us no harm.
Their moral effect, however, should not be left out of the
account. Admiral Montojo commanded the Spanish fleet;
and he had 1,950 men against our 1,808.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1081

The American squadron left Mirs Bay at two P.M. on
Wednesday, April 27th, and reached Bolinao Bay, on the
Philippine coast, early on the morning of Saturday, April
30th : the run having been made slowly, to economize coal.
The " Concord" and "Boston" were then sent ahead to look
for the enemy in Subig Bay, and the "Baltimore" afterward
followed to support them ; the rest of the ships arriving there
in the afternoon. No enemy was in sight, and the conclu-
sion was, that Montojo must have chosen to do battle under
the Manila batteries. The entrance to the harbor was forty
miles further on, and orders were given to steam thither at
six knots an hour, in order to pass the batteries there about
midnight. The nerves of the men were tested by this slow
approach to unknown dangers. The entrance to the bay is
five miles wide, but in its mouth are three islands : Corregi-
dor, the largest, a mass of volcanic rock, well-fortified, and
mounted with Krupp cannon; Caballo, four hundred feet
high, near it on the south, and El Fraile, a small rock
mounted with a battery, a little off the southern main.
The northern channel is narrow, and was said to be mined ;
the southern channel is three miles wide, but is exposed to
a cross-fire from the three islands. Dewey decided to pass
in by the latter, and hoped to get by, under cover of the
darkness, without being seen.

Contemporary history cannot be accurately written ; there
has been no opportunity to collate evidence and cancel out
the incompatible features. We do not know when the
American ships were first seen by the Spaniards, or to
what cause their discovery was due. Their arrival at Bo-
linao Bay might have been telegraphed thence to Montojo.
But if so, it would seem that he should have prepared some
surprise for them on their arrival. He did nothing, but re-
mained to the last self -immured in the little harbor within
Cavite. Some accounts state that our approach was heralded
by rockets from the Spanish forts at the mouth of the harbor
before we had fairly entered it ; others say that we were all
U.S.— 46 Vol. III.

1082 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

but through, when a shower of sparks from the funnel of
the "McCulloch," in the rear of the column, betrayed our
presence, and that it was then that the rockets were sent
up. All that can be declared with certainty is, that as our
ships passed under those tall, silent walls, over the smooth
surface that might conceal sudden destruction, a signal from
the unknown was heard or seen, and then a flash from the
direction of El Fraile showed that the enemy was awake.
But nothing could be seen of our ships except gliding gray
shadows, and the lanterns hung over the stern of each to
guide its follower; and that shower of sparks from the
"McCulloch." The Spaniards, therefore, had no good mark
to shoot at; and, as we have constantly seen since, they can
hit nothing save by accident, be the conditions never so
favorable. The several shots they fired, therefore, plunged
harmlessly into the water to right and left ; and they were
replied to only by some half dozen shots from the "Con-
cord," "Boston" and "McCulloch," the effect of which was
undetermined. Dewey's orders were not to engage, and in
a few minutes silence resumed its reign in the mysterious
darkness. But the incident had somewhat relieved the
nervous strain of the men, and they breathed freer for
those few explosions.

From Corregidor to Manila city is about thirty miles,
and it was the commodore's purpose not to begin fighting
before daylight; consequently there was more than enough
time to cover the distance. Dawn in the tropics comes sud-
denly. The speed of the ships was still further reduced, un-
til it equaled the pace of a man walking. The air was still
and hot ; the water smooth ; silence was kept on all the ves-
sels, except for the whispered orders. Perhaps the enemy's
fleet might creep upon them and suddenly open fire ; or per-
haps a mine might yet tear its way through the vitals of a
snip. At such times a man inevitably holds his breath, and
hears his heart beat. One of the officers, a man of unques-
tionable bravery, was found reading his Bible. Character-

WAR WITH SPAIN 1083

istic acts were performed unconsciously. The omnipresent
darkness seemed to mold itself into strange shapes. None
had been in those waters before; they were sailing by a
Spanish chart, which, like all else Spanish, might lie. We
may believe that the hours between midnight and five o'clock
on Sunday morning were long ones. The only thing certain
was, that a great battle was imminent ; and unless the Amer-
icans won it, their total destruction was sure; for they were
eight thousand miles from home, and the laws of neutrality
would prevent them from getting succor short of San Fran-
cisco. They must win, or never again would they pass Cor-
regidor. Commodore Dewey had thought of these things,
but with the rare union of daring with sagacity which
marked his character, he had determined what to do, and
would do it without faltering.

It had been a cloudy night, and the dawn was gray : the
first objects seen by the men on lookout were the embattled
promontory of Cavite, jutting out from the line of the shore,
and beyond it, the low houses of flat Manila. Shots came
from both directions, but fell short; the Spanish fleet was
then discerned under the lee of Cavite, from the citadel of
which hung heavily the flag of Spain, stained with every
crime and baseness known to humanity. The ships had
been cleared for action long since; the men were ready.
They stood to their guns with a smile. As the fleet turned
to pass before the enemy, the transports and the "McCul-
loch" were left in the center of the bay, not out of range,
but out of action.

The Commodore's plan was to pass back and forth before
the ships of Spain and the forts, delivering port and star-
board broadsides alternately ; thus giving each of his vessels
its equal chance, and at the same time offering the difficulty
of a moving target to the enemy. Montojo had apparently
made no preparations for battle, except to ensconce himself
in as safe a place as possible ; it does not appear that he even
"had steam in his boilers. Did he imagine that his foe was

1084 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

going to anchor in front of him, ship for ship, and hammer
it out to the end? So far as events can indicate, Montojo
knew no more about naval tactics than little King Alphonso
in Madrid; and for all the benefit his presence bestowed
upon his fleet, he might as well have been in Madrid with
the little king. Before the action was over, he doubtless
wished he had been.

Dewey's ideas were bolder and less medieval. He knew
that his men could shoot straight, and that they would do
their duty without the spur of a revolver at their backs, or
a jug of rum in their bellies. The accuracy of aim of Amer-
ican gunners has been one of the deciding features of this
war. It indicates true, as distinguished from impulsive,
courage. Spaniards have no staying power, but only the
audacity of excitement, which is transient : it lasts as long
as the man can forget himself; and if during that time it
prevails, all goes well. Resisted, it relaxes, and then the
cowardice which is beneath it comes uppermost. Moreover,
the Spanish soldier or sailor knows that if he flinches his offi-
cers will kill him ; and he has been taught to believe that if
the Americans capture him they will massacre him without
mercy. The officers themselves know that if they surrender,
or fail to conquer, court-martial and probable execution await
them at home. It would be no wonder if men fought fran-
tically under such stimulus; it is remarkable, rather, that
they have invariably been so badly and often disgracefully
defeated. Except when the advantage has been enormously
on their side they have made no appreciable resistance to us ;
and no amount of odds has been sufficient to give them the
victory. Neither in intelligence, discipline, physique or brav-
ery are they fit antagonists for us; the bubble of Spanish
valor, being pricked, collapses utterly; so far as one may
judge, they are the worst fighting men in the world.

As the American squadron advanced to the attack, the
scene was beautiful and peaceful ; as fair a May-day morn-
ing as was ever seen. As the sun rose, its level rays

WAR WITH SPAIN 1085

streamed over the pallid bay, painting it with increasing
azure. All round that great amphitheater of inland sea,
distant mountains rose; the stretches of nearer landscape
were densely shawled with the variegated greens of tropical
vegetation, fading into aerial perspectives of purple and blue.
An impalpable veil of lovely color shimmered everywhere;
delicate films of haze lingered in unsunned tracts ; soft mists
gave a warm pallor to the horizon ; but the vault of sky
above was untroubled sapphire. To the left, as the ships
moved round for their first advance, lay the irregular ex-
panse of white Manila ; a white beach bordered the bay like
a silver line. The waters were placid, with here and there
a darkening flush of ultramarine, where little breezes scudded
across the surface; and dancing images of the massive gray
vessels were reflected in the glossy undulations, as they
moved on. On the shore, between Manila and Cavite, was
seen a constantly augmenting throng of people, dressed
mostly in white ; they were coming to witness the annihi-
lation of the Yankee fleet. But nothing could be less sug-
gestive of annihilation than this quiet and lovely scene. It
was a perfect Sabbath and May-day; but the posies with
which Dewey was going a-Maying were steel shot and shell.
At this juncture, a string of party-colored flags fluttered
from the "Olympia," the Commodore's flagship; which was
no sooner seen, than a deep burst of sound, again and again
renewed, broke from the hitherto silent vessels — the cheering
of the Yankee tars. The signal had been displayed with
good judgment and knowledge of human nature; in the
language of naval emblems it communicated a thought that
filled every heart in the squadron with desire for battle. To
the Spaniards it meant nothing, and they replied to the cheer-
ing with a further dropping fire of ineffective shells ; but to
the Americans it brought up a picture of a dastardly deed
done six weeks before and eleven thousand miles away,
whereby near three hundred gallant lives had been extin-
guished in a moment with no chance to defend themselves.

1086 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The warlike passion to avenge these murdered brethren of
theirs was awakened in every man of Dewey's fleet. ''Re-
member the 'Maine' ! " It was a word to aim every gun on
board those grim, gray champions, now almost within fight-
ing distance of the enemy. Let every Spanish ship be sunk
and every Spaniard die, if it might be — yet the balance
would not be even between us and them.

Though no additional reminder was needed, about this
time there leaped heavily up from the level surface of the
bay a huge pyramid of foaming water darkened with mud
and sand, accompanied with a dull and muffled roar. A
mine-field had been fired ; but so much out of distance as
hardly to be remarked. A new signal now showed from
the "Olympia" — "Hold your fire until close to the enemy."
And that might have recalled another, more distant day,
when the embattled farmers on Bunker Hill kept finger to
trigger till the red-coated ranks of invaders toiling up the
hot slope were so near that one could see the whites of their
eyes. Americans waited then, and would wait to-day, with
results even more terrible.

But the time was at hand. The captains on their bridges
kept their eyes on the Commodore, who stood quietly observ-
ing the diminishing distance between his ship and the Span-
ish line. When within five thousand yards he turned and
spoke to Captain Gridley: it was eighteen minutes to six.
Gridley gave an order; the naked, sweating men in the tur-
rets, who had waited so long, made their quick, sharp move-
ments: and all at once there broke from the "Olympia" such
a volley of sound as that quiet bay had never known before.
The great cruiser herself reeled backward from the shock of
her own mighty voice; the bridge on which stood the Com-
modore seemed about to burst upward from its fastenings;
men standing on the decks staggered as from a giant blow.
Forth from the gun-muzzles streamed a horizontal flash of
death, with white volumes of smoke that hid the ship; an
instant later, she spoke again, and destruction sped across

WAR WITH SPAIN 1087

the expanse, which shuddered and swung aside beneath. In
less time than one draws a breath those huge bolts of steel
had crossed the space to the "Reina Cristina," on whose
bridge the Spanish admiral stood. Before the effect could
be seen, the ''Baltimore" had taken up the refrain with a
bellowing as great; and after her the "Raleigh," "Petrel,"
"Concord" and "Boston"; and all were hidden in palpitat-
ing clouds — the pungent breath of the prismatic brown pow-
der. Meanwhile from the entire Spanish fleet, and from the
batteries, and Cavite, came a roar and tempest of detona-
tions and deep explosions, mingling together in one stu-
pendous diapason : the high vault of sky seemed too narrow
to contain the sound, and the air shook, riven asunder by
blows beyond the force of titans. Human senses were out-
done and numbed; the naked men worked like demons in
the smutty reek and heat ; the joy of fighting flamed in their
souls. Far below, in stifling iron chambers, engineers and
firemen labored to work the ships and feed their incandescent
maws ; buried beyond hope in blind hells of heated metal,
but deserving no less the crown of heroism. "Down with
Spain! Hurrah for Old Glory! Remember the 'Maine'! "
went as heartily with the hurling of coal into the furnaces,
as from the gunners' deck, or the captain's bridge, or the
fighting- tops aloft.

What things are men! What agonies, triumphs, de-
spairs, miracles, do they achieve and suffer and create!
What infinity in such an hour as this — in these tremen-
dous moments! In every human soul may be awakened
Heaven, or kindled Hell.

The second round passed without special incident, the fire
on both sides being kept up without interruption. On the
third turn, a rip of the tide carried the "Raleigh" close to
the Spanish fleet, but so flurried were the Spanish gunners
that none could hit her, though she poured in destruction.
Then Montojo, perhaps fancying that he should respond to
such a challenge, moved out to attack the "Olympia." He

io88 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

posed, for a moment, as the champion of Spain. But his
ardor soon subsided ; he was met by the concentrated fire of
half our fleet, and half-way out he stopped, turned, and
began to scuttle homeward. As the stern of the "Reina
Cristina" swung into view a shot from one of the "Olym-
pia's " 8-inch guns struck it fairly, with an effect as if
the unhappy vessel had been kicked violently from behind.
The gigantic impact started her forward, and the shell, pass-
ing through all obstructions, exploded in her boiler, killing
half her crew and tearing her almost to pieces. Montojo
abandoned his ship forthwith, and got on board the "Isla de
Cuba"; but this too was riddled and shattered by our fire,
and made for the shore, where it sank. At this juncture,
however, occurred an episode which partly redeemed the
Spanish admiral's timidity. The two torpedo boats which
had been lying hidden behind the larger ships, came forth to
destroy the "Olympia." They offered but a small mark for
the big guns, and kept on until a range of eight hundred
yards brought them within the scope of the rapid-fire weap-
ons. Then, in a moment, the first of the two was hit in the
boiler, and exploded and sank; the second turned tail and
hastened in a sinking condition to the shore. A little longer
lease of courage might have achieved a notable exploit for
Spain ; but in this, as in all else, they failed. Anglo-Saxon
tenacity is not to be looked for in the degenerate Latins of
the Peninsula.

After the fifth round, the "Olympia" turned and steamed
out of range, to the dismay, at first, of some of our fleet, and
to the delight of the Spaniards, who seemed to fancy that
they must in some way have gained a victory. But it was
only that Dewey had made up his mind that his men needed
a chance to cool off and to get some breakfast. The ships
drew together some miles out, while the forts continued to
pour tons of shot into the bay, with the same blind unrea-
son that had marked their shooting throughout. A confer-
ence of the American officers elicited the astonishing fact

WAR WITH SPAIN 1089

that not a man in the fleet had been killed, and but a hand-
ful were wounded throughout. The "Baltimore" was pene-
trated by a shell, which did not interfere with her fighting
capacity; and the other ships were more lightly marked.
Spanish gunners, like women, seem to turn away their heads
and shut their eyes when firing. But even so it is perplex-
ing that with such a rain of steel they should hit nothing.
Our ships passed slowly, broadside on; and some of the
lighter-draught boats ran close in to the batteries; but
nothing touched them effectively. This led one of our gun-
ners to remark that God was behind our guns, and the devil
behind those of Spain. But it is also to be remembered that
the Spaniards were ' 'rattled" and inexpert, whereas our men
were practiced and cool.

After a three hours' intermission, Dewey returned to the
attack. But the first battle had practically disposed of the
Spanish fleet; the "Reina Oistina" and the "Castilla"
were burning, and all the others were more or less incapaci-
tated. Therefore, the plan of the second battle was different
from the first ; the ships advanced one by one, or in pairs or
threes, took up a chosen position, and poured their fire, care-
fully aimed, at the Spanish forts on Cavite and elsewhere.
The "Baltimore" was the first to advance; then the "Olym-
pia," shooting needfully, for her ammunition was running
low. For a time the forts replied rapidly, though as ineffect-
ively as ever ; but at last only three guns on Cavite were in
action, and one shot from the "Boston" disabled all of them.
Attention was then given to the remainder of the Spanish
ships, and one after the other they were destroyed or sent to
the bottom. The "De Ulloa" had the distinction of going
down with her flag flying. Much of the finishing work
was done by the little "Petrel," which fearlessly entered
the Cavite harbor ; and it was a shot from her that changed
the flag flying over the navy yard from yellow to white,
It was just past one o'clock when the surrender of Cavite
took place — about eight hours from the opening of the en-

1090 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

gagement, including the three hours' intermission. Higher
praise cannot be given to the marksmanship of the Ameri-
cans than to say that it was as good as that of the Spanish
was contemptible. Never was less ammunition wasted in
battle than by them in this fight. The number of Spanish
dead is not exactly known, but it was about a third of those
engaged, and the wounded were correspondingly numerous.
Not one of their fourteen ships survived ; and the guns of all
the forts were silenced. Such a victory made the American
navy, man for man and ship for ship, the most formidable in
the world, and more formidable absolutely than any except
the greatest two or three. As an object lesson for foreign
nations the result was most salutary ; and on Americans it
had the excellent effect of reviving a desire to command the
seas, and foreshadowing a future for the nation which has
long been the dream of a few, but had been constantly post-
poned by the greedy and unpatriotic selfishness of a dishon-
orable moneyed clique.

Admiral Dewey, as we may now call him, might have
bombarded Manila and caused its surrender; but as he had
not men enough to garrison it, this would have thrown
the inhabitants into the power of the Filipinos, who would
probably have massacred them and looted the city. He
contented himself, accordingly, with sending home news of
the engagement, and a demand for troops to complete the
conquest of the islands. Manila is a town of three hundred
thousand inhabitants, a few thousand of them foreigners ; it
stands on Luzon, the largest of the twelve hundred islands
and islets of which the Philippine group consists. Pending
further operations, Dewey occupied Cavite and the forts at
the entrance of the harbor, and put Aguinaldo, a rebel leader
who had accompanied him from Hong Kong, in command
of the insurgents — Aguinaldo agreeing to co-operate with
the Americans. As the operations in Manila were distinct
from those in the West Indies, we may conveniently review
the leading events there up to the close of the war.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1091

To General Wesley Merritt, an officer of experience, was
intrusted the task of dispatching troops to the islands; and
after some delay, partly due to the incompetence of con-
tractors, which had been disagreeably conspicuous in all
matters throughout the war in which they have been con-
cerned ; and partly to the refusal of Merritt to undertake his
duties unless a much larger force of regulars than was at
first given him was placed at his disposal, a series of little
armies was sent forward from San Francisco. The first of
these expeditions, convoyed by the "Charleston," Captain
Glass, stopped at the Ladrones group of islands, beyond the
Sandwich Islands, and executive officer Braunersreuter was
sent ashore with a, few men to receive their surrender from
the Spanish commandant. The latter asserted that he had
not heard of the declaration of war; but he and his men
were taken prisoners, and the Ladrones became American
soil. They will be of great convenience as an intermediate
coaling station. Continuing her voyage, the "Charleston"
brought her transports to Manila on June 30th. Another
expedition was by that time part way across the Pacific;
and General Merritt himself, with the third convoy, had
left San Francisco the day before. He arrived out about
the first of August, a fourth expedition having left the Cali-
fornia coast by that date ; and the land investment of Manila
was at once begun. There were in the garrison about eight
thousand Spanish soldiers, under Captain-general Augustin;
and smaller Spanish forces held positions in other parts of
the islands. A large number of insurgents were speedily
collected by Aguinaldo as general-in-chief, and they be-
leaguered the town and the neighboring strongholds, cap-
turing most of the latter with small resistance; for many
of the defenders were Filipinos forced to serve by the Span-
iards, and ready to desert at the first opportunity. But the
final attack upon the city itself was postponed until the
American troops should be ready; for it was apprehended
that the insurgents, should they obtain control of Manila,

IOQ2 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

would massacre and rob the inhabitants, in revenge for the
outrages which they had endured for many generations at
Spanish hands.

A singular state of things insensibly resulted. The Amer-
icans found themselves in opposition to both the Spaniards
and to the insurgents, though of course on different grounds.
"We had to conquer the Spaniards, but at the same time to
protect them against the barbarism of the natives. Thus
while we were acting with the insurgents on general prin-
ciples, we were yet acting with the Spaniards against them
from a special point of view. The situation was complicated
by the behavior of Aguinaldo, who had at first been a pro-
tege of ours, and professedly our firm ally. The successes
which he met with, and the urgency of the desires of his fol-
lowers, led him gradually to adopt an ambiguous if not semi-
hostile attitude toward us; and though the expulsion of Spain
from the islands would be wholly due to us, we were given
to infer that our presence and control were considered unde-
sirable by the insurgents. It was a possible issue, therefore,
that, after disposing of Spain, we might be constrained to
fight the natives also. This raised a question as to the mo-
tives which had brought about our invasion of the Philip-
pines. Had we originally contemplated their conquest and
annexation? The answer must be a modified negative. We
had attacked them because Spain held them, and would be
crippled by our seizure of them. But having seized them,
we must hold them; we could not surrender them to the
Filipinos, because they were incapable of establishing a
strong and orderly government; we could not give them
back to Spain, because her rule was there, as everywhere,
a stench in the nostrils of humanity and civilization ; and we
could not leave them to be divided up between European pow-
ers, because they had a commercial value, and it was our right
to secure that for ourselves, as recompense for the losses of the
war. The situation was forced upon us by the logic of events.

Meanwhile, the critical aspect of Europe's warring inter-

WAR WITH SPAIN 1093

ests in the East made the securing of a foothold in the group
desirable to them, or some of them ; and the tactics of the
German squadron at Manila rendered it probable that Ger-
many, more than the other powers, was anxious to possess
herself of a station there at least. England, on the other
hand, seemed to favor our retention of the whole group, and
Japan, so far as her feeling could be surmised, would not
oppose our doing so. But the officers on the German ships
openly fraternized with the Spaniards ; and Aguinaldo was
believed to have made promises of concessions to the Ger-
mans, in return for moral or physical support from them
against us. There was, altogether, a curious and delicate
complication, which might easily have been inflamed into
serious trouble by an indiscreet or feeble representative on
our side. Fortunately we were represented by a man of
exceptional executive and diplomatic ability, as well as of
great courage and resources. The war has produced no fig-
ure comparable to Admiral Dewey; and there is obviously
no position in the gift of his country which he is not fully
competent to fill, whether in war or in peace. He firmly
and sternly checked the German admiral when the latter
presumed to push his arrogance beyond the bounds of tech-
nical right conduct ; he kept his temper and his wits on all oc ■
casions ; he fathomed the character and position of Aguinal-
do, and knew how to hold him in hand. He perceived that
with every day that passed our own stand, both moral and
physical, would become more unassailable. He understood
the evil of political interference in military affairs, and kept
the cable connecting him with Washington unrepaired: he
had cut it the day after the battle of Manila, and all com-
munications to or from him must go by dispatch boats ply-
ing between Manila and Hong Kong. Thus he retained
control, and was free to use his own discretion as to what
should be done or left undone; and his native intelligence,
his experience, and the advantages he enjoyed in being on
the spot, enabled him to do all well.

I0Q4 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

We may surmise that Dewey perceived the necessity of
our ownership of the Philippines, and took his measures with
that end in view. Of the twelve hundred islands included
in the group, only four hundred are inhabited ; and but half
a dozen of these are of considerable size. They are occupied
by two races, in addition to the Spaniards, the half-breeds,
and the representatives of other European nations than Spain.
The aboriginees are a race of savages called Negritos, of
whom little is known, and who have never been conquered.
With them, but quite distinct from them, are the Malays, .
with whom alone Spain has dealt during her three hundred
years' occupation of the islands. The Spaniards have never
penetrated into the interior parts of the islands; they hold
only the coasts of some of them, with the towns which they
have built there. Little or nothing is known, therefore,
of the inland topography of the group, or of its mineral and
other resources. The total population has been roughly esti-
mated at about ten millions; the principal commercial prod-
ucts are tobacco, sugar and hemp. At a minimum valua-
tion, the exports are given at about $50,000,000. But here,
as in other Spanish colonies, a very large proportion of the
revenues goes into the pockets of the official thieves whom
Spain sends out to rule her possessions. The taxes are in-
numerable, iniquitous, and preposterously high. Under a
more liberal and just system of government, the receipts
from the islands would undoubtedly be enormously increased.
A great part of the real estate is held by the Church, which
has aided to impose a superficial civilization upon the bulk
of the Malays, the effect of which however is of very ques-
ti< >n;ible benefit. There is also a large number of the natives
who profess the Mahometan faith. It is evident that such
a population is incapable of self-government ; and the power
of a general like Aguinaldo is insecure and limited. On the
other hand, we shall doubtless find grave difficulties in intro-
ducing order and subordination in the islands; but the task
is not beyond the abilities of Americans, and there will be

WAR WITH SPAIN 1095

many collateral advantages, in addition to commercial profits.
There is a great deal of both latent energy and of capital in
this country, which could nowhere find such suitable employ-
ment as in ruling and developing colonial possessions.

During July, the successive bodies of American troops
were landed on the shores of Manila Bay, and got in readi-
ness for the assault on the Manila fortifications. By the end
of the month there were about fifteen thousand troops under
General Merritt, of whom a third or more were regulars.
The number of soldiers wearing the Spanish uniform was
about eight thousand, the majority of them regulars. They
were well intrenched, and the advantage was apparently on
their side; but in truth there was no misgiving as to the
American superiority. The Spanish troops were poor in
physique, and still poorer in spirit, from Augustin down;
the latter, as his dispatches to Spain indicated, would have
surrendered long before, but for the dread of court-martial.
He also dreaded the numerous insurgent troops who now sur-
rounded the city on every side; and he appeared to be trying
to secure a promise from us to hold Aguinaldo in check in case
of surrender, and on the other hand intriguing with the rebel
chief to join against us with him. It is not in this temper, or
under such conditions, that victories are won. The arrival,
toward the end of July, of the powerful monitor ''Monterey"
greatly strengthened our position, both as regarded the con-
tending parties, and the Germans, whose naval force was
now so inferior to ours as to make an overt demonstration
on their part impossible. It was, nevertheless, full time for
us to act; since the rainy season was beginning, and the
health of our army would be impaired by long inactivity in
the trenches. Dewey would of course have taken and occu-
pied Manila long before, had the troops been available; but
with his own men he could not have policed the city, or taken
charge of the prisoners and prevented disorders and massa-
cres. But his diplomatic resources proved equal to main-
taining the status quo until the right juncture should arrive.

1096 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Aguinaldo was between two fires, or possibly three. He
feared to support the Americans, lest his followers charge
him with intending to transfer them from one master to an-
other ; he could not trust the Spaniards, knowing their faith-
lessness of old ; and yet, if the Germans took part with the
Spaniards, he would be in peril should he refuse the latter's
overtures. In this predicament, he issued a statement not
devoid of acuteness, though it was amusingly transparent.
"Why should the Americans expect me to fight blindly for
their interests when they will not be frank with me?" he
asked. "Am I fighting for annexation, protection, or inde-
pendence? I can take Manila, but to what use? — If America
takes it, I save my men and arms for what the future has in
store for me. I am not both a fool and a rogue, but the
interests of my people are as sacred as yours." Evidently
Aguinaldo had taken his first lessons in Oriental diplomacy.
As has been pointed out, annexation, with a strong and just
government, is all that could be promised to the Filipinos ;
the period when they could develop the ability to govern
themselves was so remote as not to be considered. The
manifesto was therefore significant, for practical purposes,
only as showing that the insurgents could not be depended
upon as allies, and that it might be necessary to guard
against them as enemies. Orders were given to enter into
no negotiations with them. A few days later, Aguinaldo
proposed to General Merritt that, in the event of the sur-
render of Manila, he should be permitted to lead his troops
through the city in a triumphal march ; and that hereafter
American officers should be put in command of native troops.
This indicated a moderation of his attitude toward us ; there
were arguments for and against such a suggestion ; but Mer-
ritt and Dewey decided that all questions must be postponed
till Manila had fallen, when the answer would be controlled
by circumstances and prospects.

As the decisive moment drew near, it seemed likely that
Augustin might surrender without a conflict : the hopeless-

WAR WITH SPAIN 1097

ness of contending against our army and fleet simultaneously
being apparent. This, also, would be the best way to secure
the city against being looted by the insurgents, in the confu-
sion of the first hours of our entry into it. But on the other
side were to be considered the punctilios of Spanish "honor,"
which demanded some show of a battle ; or, in other words,
if Augustin surrendered without a fight, or the pretense of
one, he would be shot on returning to Spain. Dewey and
Merritt were desirous to avoid bloodshed, and useless de-
struction of property, but they could not enter into intricacies
of this kind, and announced that unless the city was surren-
dered, it would be attacked from land and sea, with results
the responsibility for which must rest on Spanish shoulders.

At this juncture, our troops were assembled in Camp
Dewey, some miles south of Manila, but near the Spanish
intrenched lines on that side. Immediately in front of them
were insurgent troops under Aguinaldo, in breastworks con-
structed by him. Before the 30th of July, a section of the
insurgents moved out of that part of their breastworks which
adjoined the shore of the bay, and were replaced by our
troops, who thus lay with their left wing on the shore, and
their right adjoining the left wing of the insurgents. The
distance between them and the Spanish lines was about one
thousand yards. The town here held by the Spaniards was
not Manila, but a southern suburb called Malate, several miles
below it, and connected with it by a road passing through the
suburban village of Paco. The number of Spanish troops at
this point was about thirty-five hundred, all regulars. The
number of our men in the trenches was about nine hundred
on the night of July 31st; and they were nearly all volun-
teers, lately arrived, who had never been under fire. The
fleet was at Cavite, opposite Manila, some miles to the north.

As evening fell, a violent typhoon set in, with pitchy
darkness, and torrents of rain. Either for the alleged reason
that the following day was a holiday, or owing to a secret
understanding with the Spaniards, Aguinaldo withdrew his

1098 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

troops from their position this evening, thereby leaving our
right flank exposed. At eleven o'clock, in the midst of the
storm, our pickets were fired on, and retreated slowly within
our lines, the enemy following in force, with artillery. Our
troops were called to arms and responded promptly, and
amid the fury of the tropical downpour a severe battle
began. The first of our troops to sustain the onset of the
enemy was a battery of the Tenth Regiment of Pennsylvania
volunteers, who held the Spaniards in check with a well-
directed fire until some companies of the First California
Volunteers and the Utah Battery, under Captain Young,
could move forward to their support. By the time the relief
came, the Pennsylvania men had but four rounds of am-
munition left. A partial penetration of their right had been
made, when the regulars of the Third Artillery charged as
infantry, and drove the enemy back in confusion, the volun-
teers assisting. The Astor Battery, which was on the ground,
was unable to do any execution, owing to the boats in which
they landed having capsized in the storm, ruining their am-
munition. After the repulse of the first attack, there was a
lull for two or three hours, and then the enemy advanced
once more, and maintained his attack for half an hour, with
the same result as at first. They had moved some artillery
to our right, and directed a harassing fire from that direc-
tion; but again fell back. The storm continued with un-
abated vigor, and the only indication for our men of the
whereabout of the enemy had been the flash of their guns,
so that the fighting was of a blindfold character ; but toward
four o'clock the Spaniards came on a third time, though now
in a half-hearted manner. Our men, on the contrary, were
now in a better position, and their fire was more effective
than at first; the Spaniards were repulsed with loss, and
were pursued for some distance toward Malate. This ended
the battle for the night, and such further fighting as took
place on the morrow was between artillery forces on either
side. The defeat of the enemy was complete.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1099

Their attack had been well planned, and ought to have
been successful. Our men had been engaged in digging new
intrenchments in advance of the main line, and were flanked
and nearly cut off before they could resume their former
position. The roads leading from our camp, in the rear, to
the intrenchments, along which our supporting troops must
move, were under a heavy flanking fire throughout, which
would not have been possible had not the insurgents aban-
doned their positions at the outset of the engagement. Con-
sidering the bewildering circumstances of the battle, and the
rawness and inferior numbers of our troops, they deserve
great credit for holding their ground; but it has always
been a desperate enterprise to attack Americans in intrench-
ments. The losses of the Spaniards in killed and wounded
have been variously estimated at from one thousand to five
hundred; our own loss was again miraculously small — nine
killed and forty-five wounded. The Spaniards used Mauser
rifles, and had they known how to aim them, they might
have exterminated our entire force.

The fact that their first attack was directed precisely at
the junction point of our line with that of the insurgents,
combined with Aguinaldo's ambiguous conduct during sev-
eral days previous to the battle, made it seem more than
probable that he had had information of the attack, and
had withdrawn in order to facilitate it. Had our men been
driven from their trenches, the camp would have been open
to the enemy, and even without the active help of the insur-
gents, they could have driven our troops into the sea. Sev-
eral transports full of American soldiers were lying off shore,
waiting for the storm to cease before disembarking. But
the moral effect of a defeat would have been a strong en-
couragement to the Spaniards, and disastrous to us, and
might have indefinitely prolonged the war in this quarter.
It transpired after the battle that the Spaniards had confi-
dently expected victory, and were both astonished and dis-
couraged by their repulse. The usual stories had been circu-

i ioo HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

lated as to the incapacity and cowardice of the Americans i
and the report was rife that we had been defeated in the
"West Indies and our chief coast towns bombarded. The
credulity of the Spaniard seems to be surpassed only by
his ability as a fabricator.

The sally from Malate was the overture to the American
attack upon Manila and its defenses, which took place on
Saturday, August 13th. By that time all the American
troops and guns had been disembarked, and were in posi-
tion, and the fleet was ready to co-operate. Many of the
Spanish troops, being natives, were untrustworthy; many
more were in hospital; their morale was gone, and their
guns were inferior to ours. They had just learned of the
failure of Camara's fleet to come to their assistance, and this
completed their disheartenment. Finally, the insurgents,
admonished by the result of the Malate battle, had ranged
themselves emphatically on our side, to the number of at
least ten thousand men. Under these circumstances, it was
not to be expected that the Spaniards would make a serious
resistance. Their intrenchments were ten miles in length,
and could not be adequately manned.

Dewey had given notice on Friday that he would bom-
bard the town on the following day unless it were surren-
dered in the meantime. Saturday mornnig the demand for
surrender was made, and declined. At a little before ten
o'clock the "Olympia," lying off Malate, fired the first gun
at the defenses of that town. The rest of the American fleet
was ranged along the coast between Malate and the Pasig
River, which flows through the center of Manila. The ships
of the French and Germans lay to the north of this point,
while the English and Japanese were near the Malate end
of the line.

For an hour and a half the American fleet kept up the
bombardment, directing their fire at fortified places only.
Most of the non-combatants had before this taken refuge in
vessels in the harbor. At half past eleven the American

WAR WITH SPAIN noi

troops, led by the First Colorado Regiment, charged the
Malate defenses. The Spaniards retreated to their second
line of intrenchments, where for a while they made a stand ;
but the Americans were re-enforced, and drove them into the
town itself. At half past one, the white flag was hoisted,
and Manila was ours. That evening, Augustin accepted
the offer of a German warship, the "Kaiserin Augusta,"
to carry him to Hong Kong; he was smuggled aboard at
ten o'clock, leaving his subordinate, General Jaudenes, to
hand over the city to Dewey and Merritt. It was given out
that he had deputed Jaudenes for this service ten days be-
fore ; and that Admiral Dewey had given him permission to
take his departure on the German war- vessel.

This, the last battle of the war, was fought a day after
peace had been agreed upon and the protocol signed at
Washington and Madrid; but, as in the case of the battle
of New Orleans, three-quarters of a century before, the news
did not reach the contending parties in season to avert the
engagement. In other respects, the two battles had little
in common with each other. The shooting at Manila was
careful and slow, and was not meant to be deadly ; the ob-
ject of the fleet was to destroy the Spanish works rather
than to slaughter their defenders. The latter did little ex-
cept keep out of the way, and, after a proper interval, move
out of the works and hoist the flag of surrender. There
were no casualties on the fleet; only the "Olympia," "Ra-
leigh," "Petrel" and "Callao" took part in the active oper-
ations; the others were not needed. After all was over,
Merritt, with Lieutenant Brumby, went up the Pasig River
and landed in Manila ; and after some searching found the
modest Jaudenes "in a church, crowded with women and
children." The insurgents were not allowed to enter the
town ; the position taken by our Government being that we
could not tolerate, in the same jurisdiction, an army of an-
other nation which does not place itself under the command
of the American commander-in-chief. Measures were taken

1 102 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to keep back the insurgents by force if necessary Our loss
in the battle was estimated at seven killed and about forty
wounded ; the Spanish losses were not ascertained.

Thus the first and the last important engagements of the
war were fought by Dewey, in a place nearly twelve thou-
sand miles distant from the normal seat of hostilities. They
were perfect victories, manned by no errors, and followed by
acts of humanity and charity. They showed that American
men-of-war were models of discipline, order and efficiency;
and so far as the land troops had opportunity to partake in
them, the duty to be done was accomplished valiantly and
cleanly. The political future of the Philippines still remains
to be settled ; and we can express no better aspiration than
that our statesmen may acquit themselves, in the premises,
as well as our soldiers and sailors have done.

We must now return to the situation in the west, and to
the month of May, with Sampson and Schley guarding the
east and west ends of Cuba, in the hope of intercepting the
Spanish fleet under Cervera. When it became certain that
Cervera was in fact hidden in the narrow- necked harbor of
Santiago, Schley placed himself on guard opposite the en-
trance, and was soon joined there by Sampson; for it would
not have been impossible for the Spanish ships to escape
under cover of some dark and stormy night, and it was a
matter of vital importance either to keep Cervera where he
was, or, if he came out, to fight and destroy him. There
was the third alternative of entering the harbor and fighting
him there; since Dewey had done a similar thing at Manila,
why might not Schley do it at Santiago. But the two cases
were very different. For Dewey, there had been no alter-
native, nor could he afford to delay. He had braved a great
peril, but he had been justified in doing so because there was
nothing else to be done. But to enter the harbor of Santiago
was not justifiable, until all other methods had been tried.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1103

The channel, instead of being three miles wide, was but little
over four hundred feet. It was filled with torpedoes, and
was commanded lengthwise and crosswise by guns of heavy
caliber, from some of which a plunging fire could be directed
on the unprotected decks of our vessels. There was hardly a
chance that the first of our ships to enter that channel would
not be blown up or sunk ; and her hull would then obstruct
the passage for the rest. Our loss was certain to be intoler-
ably large, and the odds were great that it would also be
entirely futile. On the other hand, if we let Cervera alone,
his capture and that of Santiago were only a question of time.
Troops could be landed east and west of the bay, and com-
pletely invest the town on the landward sides ; so that even
without a battle the garrison and crews would finally be
starved out. Meanwhile our fleet could bombard Morro and
the other outer defenses at leisure, and perhaps, when they
were reduced, either throw shells into the town, over the
intervening hills, from the mouth of the channel, or devise
some means of exploding the torpedoes in the channel, pre-
paratory to entering in force. The only objection to delib-
erate operations was that, until Cervera was disposed of,
nothing else could safely be attempted. We had not ships
enough at our disposal both to keep him where he was, and
to carry the war in other directions. Besides, the rainy sea-
son was coming on, and the health of our troops was sure to
be impaired if they were forced to remain for an indefinite
time in trenches.

On May 31st, the day before Sampson's squadron joined
Schley's in front of Santiago, the latter bombarded Morro
and the other fortifications with the ships "Massachusetts"
and "Iowa," and the cruiser "New Orleans." The Spanish
"Cristobal Colon" came out near the mouth of the harbor,
and added her guns to those of Morro, and four land bat-
teries, in defense. Morro was severely pounded but was not
reduced ; three of the land batteries were silenced, and it was
thought that the "Colon" was hit. On June 1st, Sampson

1 104 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

arrived and took command of the entire fleet of sixteen war-
ships. Among other attendant vessels was a collier, the
"Merrimac" ; and on June 3d, with this collier as the instru-
ment, a deed was done which immediately took its place as
the most daring and brilliant of the war, and one of the
most heroic ever planned and executed in naval history.

The protagonist of this exploit was Richmond Pearson
Hobson, a young graduate of Annapolis, and a naval con-
structor of eminence. He was born in the South in 1872,
and graduated at the head of his class in 1889. For some
years he pursued special studies in France and England.
His official duties would ordinarily keep him in the home
office; but Hobson asked and received permission to go to
sea; and he sailed on board the "New York," as a member
of the commodore's staff, with the rank of lieutenant. On
the way to Santiago he perfected and communicated to
Sampson his plan for preventing all further apprehension
from Cervera. In its principle, it was simplicity itself : — to
sink a vessel in the narrowest part of the channel, so as
to obstruct the egress of the Spanish fleet. It was the details
that were interesting. Who was to navigate the ship to the
proper place in the channel, and sink her there at the right
moment? And how was the sinking to be done?

Hobson had his answers all ready. He would take in the
"Merrimac" himself, with a crew of six men only, who of
course must be volunteers. He would have anchors at bow
and stern, the former to be dropped when the proper point
was reached, and the other when the tide had swung the ship
athwart channel. Torpedoes would be arranged along the
sides, which could be exploded at the right moment by elec-
tricity, and the ship thus sunk immediately — the rather as
she would have on board a load of two thousand tons of coal.
That, broadly stated, was Hobson's plan. He had thought
it out carefully, and could see no valid objections to it; it
did but involve the loss of a collier — and the probable sacri-
fice of his own life and those of his volunteers. In view of

WAR WITH SPAIiN 1105

the result to be obtained, Hobson thought the expense was
not worth considering. Commodore Sampson took the mat-
ter into consideration, and finally told Hobson that if he
wanted to do the thing, he was at liberty to try. Between
two brave and patriotic men there need be little palaver.
Hobson set to work to prepare the "Merrimac" at once.

In fine weather, in broad daylight, in time of peace, the
project presented no extraordinary difficulties. A firm and
true hand at the tiller, a prompt and disciplined crew, ordi-
nary good luck with currents, and all would be well. But
the conditions under which Hobson must carry out his exploit
were very different from these. He must go into the jaws
of death under cover of darkness, because otherwise he would
be sunk by the guns of Morro and the batteries before he
could reach his objective point. At the best, before he could
be ready, he would have risked death a thousand times.
When he attained the desired point in the channel — if he
ever did attain it— he must risk death at his own hands by
blowing up and sinking his vessel. And after that was done,
how was he to escape? He had prepared a catamaran, or
raft, on which he hoped to be able to paddle to safety ; but it
was a forlorn hope. A fellow officer, young cadet Powell, was
to cruise off the mouth of the harbor for a time, on the chance
of picking him up ; but what a desperate chance it was ! No :
the odds against his accomplishing his object were almost be-
yond computation ; but the odds against his coming out alive
were entirely so. No one understood all this better than Hob-
son, but it did not for a moment dash his cheerfulness or di-
minish his earnestness. His eye was single to business ; he
would do the best he could ; let the rest take care of itself.

The attempt was to have been made on June 2d. The
matter of getting volunteers caused some embarrassment,
because all the sailors of the fleet wished to go. Out of
upward of a thousand likely men, six were selected ; but a
seventh managed to smuggle himself on board, for the mere
pleasure of the adventure. All was ready on the night of

U.S.— 47 Vol. III.

uo6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

June 2d, but there had been delays, and after the collier had
started, it was so near daylight that Sampson recalled her,
lest she be uselessly destroyed. The men had been keyed up
to a high pitch, and this recall was very trying; and Hobson
himself, grimy with sweat, oil and coal-dust, mounted to the
commodore's quarter-deck and told him, with a certain fierce-
ness, that "there must be no more recalls!" And the next
night he was allowed to go.

It was dark when they set out ; the clouds covered the
sky, there was no moon, and a brisk breeze threw up a
choppy sea. The "Merrimac" did not steer straight for the
entrance of the harbor, but made a detour, in order to avoid
rocks. Being at length on her right course, she was driven
ahead at full speed. The men were ordered to lie on the
deck, and not to stir until ordered to do so ; they were to pay
no attention to the fire poured upon them, and if hit, were
not to move. These trying instructions every man faith-
fully observed. Before the big collier had entered the chan-
nel, she was discovered, and the rain of shot began. The
tall walls of rock on either hand made the darkness more
intense than ever, but Hobson steered a true course amid
the darkness and the roar of shot and shell and the difficult
twistings of the channel. The Spaniards thought they had
to deal with a battleship, and turned loose everything they
had upon her; though they might have wondered why she
made no reply to their furious attack. She kept on her
course in silence; but ere she could reach the appointed
spot, a shot disabled her steering gear. She was already
sinking, without aid of her 'own torpedoes ; but she forged
ahead a little, and then began to swing round with the rush
of the tide. At this moment, every element of terror at sea
was present, except that the ship was not on fire. But her
crew had not the relief of fighting back against their ene-
mies; they must keep quiet and lie still, while they sank.
They were alone; and nature and man were conspiring to
crush them. But they knew that they were doing a mighty

WAR WITH SPAIN 1107

service to their country ; and there was not a man of them
who would have changed places with any other man alive.
Let us remember that they were not exceptional men ; they
were Americans such as you may meet daily in the street.
They were six volunteers chosen out of a thousand like
them. Those who were not chosen, envied them. The
spirit of a man is a marvelous thing.

The "Merrimac" gave a final plunge, and sank; and a
whirlpool formed over the spot where she went' down.
Hobson and his men found themselves in the water : how,
they did not exactly know. "With all their strength they
swam away from the whirlpool, lest it suck them under.
In a few minutes, the suction ceased to drag on them; and
then they turned to climb on the catamaran, which had been
fastened to the roof of the midship house. But before they
could reach it, boats containing Spaniards armed with rifles
appeared round the point of rock up the channel. To have
climbed upon the raft would have been certain death, for
these Spaniards would shoot before asking questions. "What
should they do, then? The only thing to do was to take
shelter underneath it; and this was rendered practicable
by the accident that the rope which moored the raft to the
deck-house of the sunken ship was a foot or more too short,
so that the raft was submerged on one side, while the other
stood up out of water. Under this providential roof they
swam, and remained huddled together, with only their noses
above water, while the Spaniards searched everywhere for
traces of the crew which brought this mysterious craft into
their harbor, and found none. They barely ventured to
breathe, or to converse even in whispers. Hour after hour
passed by, and still the curious Spaniards hovered about the
spot, ejaculating, conjecturing, and inquisitive. The water,
which had at first felt warm, got cold, and their teeth began
to chatter till they feared the noise would betray them. One
man started to swim ashore, but was ordered back, almost
revealing the whole party. At last morning dawned, and

uo8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

then appeared a launch, with officers on board. Hobson
hailed them, and clambered out on the raft; after a few
minutes' hesitation, the launch allowed him to swim tow-
ard them and surrender himself. Admiral Cervera himself
pulled him aboard, heard his story, recognized the officer's
belt which he wore over his underclothing, and accepted the
capitulation of himself and his shivering comrades. General
Linares, to whom they were handed over, confined them in
a blind' dungeon in Morro, and threatened them with the
question by torture; but to the inquiry, "What was the ob-
ject of your act?" — a superfluous inquiry, one would think —
one of them made the answer, "In the United States Navy
it is not the custom for seamen to know or to ask to know
the object of the superior officer." Had their fate depended
on Linares, they would doubtless have been shot ; but Cer-
vera would not permit it ; it was he who sent word of their
safety to Sampson, and obtained better quarters for them,
after they had been subjected to a day's shelling in Morro.
It all seems like a chapter of romance by Stevenson or
Cooper. The rush into the black channel, the frenzied can-
nonade, the explosion and the sinking, the eight heroes, un-
scathed every one, breathless under the raft, holding on by
slipping their fingers between the crevices of the boards ; the
coming of the admiral, and his grotesque meeting with Hob-
son, whose rank he recognized, we may be sure, not so much
by the belt he wore as by the eye and aspect which all the
smut and filth of the night's work could not disguise; the
day in the dungeon, with the shells of his own fleet scream-
ing and splintering around him ; and at last his removal to
Santiago town, where he and his companions witnessed with
thrilling hearts the charges of American soldiers «n the
Spanish breastworks ; — was ever fairy-tale more wonderful?
The matter-of-fact, prosaic Nineteenth Century vanishes as
we read, and the great days of classic heroism are present
with us once more. But, indeed, they are never absent, so
long as human souls are brave and devoted.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1109

One might almost say that this exploit marked the crisis
of the war. For though the "Merrimac" was found not to
lie exactly across the channel, she was enough of an obstruc-
tion to make it unsafe for Cervera to attempt escape at
night ; and if he came out in the day time, his fate was prac-
tically certain. His fleet was done for, all but the actual
smashing; and Spain without a fleet either west or east
was already a conquered nation. The conquest of Cuba
and Porto Rico could be accomplished at our convenience,
with no possibility of interruption; and we could prosecute
the war in Spain itself by sending troops and ships to its
coasts. It is true that Spain presently conjured up another
phantom fleet, under Camara, and pretended to dispatch it
to the Philippines to wipe out Dewey ; but it never caused us
a day's anxiety, and after being dragged through the Suez
Canal, it could only be dragged back again, crippled not by
battle, but simply by being handled by its own ignorant
crews. In order to defeat a Spanish navy, it is necessary
only to leave it in the unrestricted charge of its own officers
and men; in a year or so, at most, its machinery will be
hopelessly ruined, its bottoms foul with seaweed and bar-
nacles, and a few smartly-managed American gunboats or
converted pleasure-yachts can do the rest.

The American people is impatient of delay, and the gov-
ernment felt the pressure of public opinion, demanding that
the war be prosecuted with vigor. Hitherto our troops had
done nothing except congregate in camps and learn drill.
No better material for an army was ever got together ; but
it must be admitted that there was shown, in the manage-
ment, transportation and commissariat of an army, consider-
able incompetence. It must be remembered that more than
a generation had passed since the outbreak of the Civil War,
and that there existed few of the men who, at that epoch,
had made themselves familiar with the work of handling
and supplying large bodies of troops. Mistakes were inevi-
table, and in the case of contractors there may also have

II 10

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

been negligence or recklessness. The problems of a cam-
paign in a tropical country were likewise novel and of espe-
cial difficulty. The story of abuses was vehemently told,
but no such evidence was adduced as to justify retailing it
here; the time will come when a full accounting will be de-
manded, and equal justice dispensed. In the great picture
of this conflict, as of others, there are dark shadows as well
as brilliant lights; and men like Dewey and Hobson are set
off by creeping scoundrels whose names soil the page of his-
tory. The worst as well as the best qualities of human na-
ture come uppermost in wars. The ruin of Spain is largely
due to the unrestrained and sinister luxuriance of noxious
growths, the germs at least of which have appeared among
ourselves. "We may take her example as a warning to us,
to stamp out the evil before it gains greater headway.

The first thing to be done, now that our navy had pre-
pared the way, was to get our troops ashore ; and some time
was spent in selecting a place in which to land them. There
was a harbor east of Santiago, and some forty miles distant
from it, which answered our needs ; but there was a force of
Spaniards there which had to be taken into consideration.
Admiral Sampson, supposing, as he had every reason to do,
that transports must already be on their way with troops,
put ashore at this harbor of Guantanamo a force of six hun-
dred marines, under the charge of Commander McCalla.
This officer's career had been interrupted a few years before
by the sentence of a court -martial, convicting him of cruelty
to his men ; and he was anxious to redeem himself. The ad-
ventures of this little detachment of marines, commanded by
Lieutenant-colonel R. W. Huntington, is a stirring episode
by itself ; but it cannot be treated in detail here. They were
attacked by Spanish guerrillas, fighting in the bush and the
tall grass, and concealing themselves with screens of leaves,
on June 11th and following days; the enemy were numer-
ous, and our men were in an exposed position. They began
to suffer from the loss of sleep and continual nervous strain ;

WAR WITH SPAIN mi

two officers and two men were killed. On June 12th they
changed the place of their camp, and were again attacked,
but drove the assailants off, losing two more men killed and
several wounded. Meanwhile a force of Cubans had joined
the Americans, and did good service in scouting and bush-
fighting; and on the 14th of June, the soldiers of the two
peoples fought for the first time side by side and pursued
the Spaniards, inflicting an estimated loss of two hundred
upon them. The following day, the warship "Marblehead,"
Commander McCalla, with the "Texas" and "Suwanee,"
shelled the fort at Caimanera, the port of Guantanamo; but
all this while nothing had been seen of the promised trans-
ports with sixteen thousand troops under General Shafter.
They should have arrived on the 10th; but as a matter of
fact, they did not start from Tampa until the 15th of June.
An additional force of marines had been meanwhile landed
from the fleet, and the Spaniards had been repulsed in every
engagement; but the number of the enemy far exceeded
ours, and there seemed to be no reason why they might
not receive important re- enforcements. For a time, there-
fore, some uneasiness was felt about our men. Intense in-
dignation was also aroused by the report that the bodies of
our men killed in the bush had been mutilated by the Span-
ish guerrillas. The statement was embodied in one of the
official reports ; but the defense was made that the apparent
mutilations were in fact caused by the spreading of the bul-
lets fired by the Spaniards, causing them to make lacerated
wounds suggesting wanton disfigurement. Admiral Samp-
son, in a subsequent dispatch, accepted this interpretation
of the matter, being naturally anxious to disbelieve that the
enemy against which he fought was unworthy of civilized
consideration. Unfortunately, however, the stories told were
subsequently shown to be too true. An American officer
who personally examined the bodies of our men found that
they had been subjected to the same wanton and obscene
outrages which had been inflicted upon the bodies of Japa-

iii2 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

nese soldiers during the late war between China and Japan.
The work was deliberate and unmistakable; no room was
left for the plea of accident. We are, however, able to re-
cord that, so far as is known, no repetition of the mutilations
occurred in the battles before Santiago ; and it may fairly be
inferred that the work at Guantanamo was done by Spanish
irregular troops only, without the cognizance or authority of
their officers. In most of the cases in which our troops have
met those of the enemy, the Spaniards seem to have fought
with reasonable courage and persistence; though there can
be no comparison in this respect between their troops and
the American ones. They always had the advantages of
position and of superior artillery; and being armed with
smokeless powder, they could not readily be located by our
men; in spite of which they invariably abandoned their
positions when attacked.

The delay in sending forward our re-enforcements from
Tampa was due to the confusion incident to handling an un-
expectedly large number of troops ; and General Shaf ter un-
doubtedly was embarrassed by the task assigned to him. He
was lacking in experience and, as it afterward appeared, in
tact, as shown in his dealings with our allies, the Cuban troops
and generals. It was fortunate for him and for our army that
the war was so short-lived, and that the men against whom
we fought were so lacking in spirit as well as in leaders.

Before the transports arrived, two Cuban leaders, Rabi
and Garcia, had effected a lodgment at Acceraderos, a coast
town west of Santiago, having a good wharf. June 20th
the transports hove in sight, over thirty in number; next
day Shafter and Sampson conferred with Garcia as to his
co-operation with us ; and on the 22d the landing took place
at Baiquiri, a feint of landing being made at the same time
at a point just west of Santiago, and the coast being shelled
by the fleet along a stretch of many miles. No serious op-
position was mot with; the weather was fine, and in two or
three days the sixteen thousand men were ashore.

WAR WITH SPAIN 1113

The road from Baiquiri to Santiago runs first west and
then north, passing through the towns of Demajayabo,
Juragua, and Sevilla, and crossing streams which are
rivulets in dry weather, but torrents in the rains. The
country is rough and difficult to a degree incomprehensi-
ble to those who have not seen tropical forests ; the roads
are but bridle paths through dense and briery jungle, and
in wet weather become terrible sloughs of slippery mud. It
is impossible to see for any distance, the heat is intolera-
ble; travel for a single person is difficult enough, but for
an army, subjected to the fire of unseen foes, loaded with
trappings and carrying supplies, it is appalling indeed.

Besides Baiquiri, we had secured a base at Siboney, be-
tween Baiquiri and Santiago. The Spaniards fell back from
Demajayabo and Juragua to Sevilla; before reaching that
point our advance met the enemy in a sharp skirmish. An
ambush had been prepared for us in the hills of La Gua-
sima: whether or not it was a surprise was a question;
General Wheeler, an ex-Confederate soldier, says it was not,
and his word may be trusted. At all events we suffered
relatively severe losses. An unknown number of Spaniards,
conjectured to be fifteen hundred, had constructed effec-
tive defenses and strung barbed wire at points of vantage;
they used smokeless powder, and it was hard to locate them.
The number of our troops at this point was about nine hun-
dred, under Colonel Young: they comprised the 23d Regu-
lar Infantry and the 1st and 10th Cavalry, and a regiment
of volunteer cavalry known as Roosevelt's Rough Riders.
All were on foot. The chief loss fell on the Rough Riders,
who maintained their ground with great courage and steadi-
ness ; among the first killed of this regiment was Sergeant
Hamilton Fish, and at the same time with him fell Captain
Capron, a gallant officer. Altogether, in the hour's fight, we
lost sixteen killed and fifty-two wounded ; but the enemy could
not withstand our advance, the persistency of which amazed
them, and they fled, leaving Sevilla open to our occupation.

ii i4 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The two armies now confronted each other along a line
stretching from the coast town of Aguadores, a few miles
east of Morro, to El Caney, northwest of Santiago. The
country was better adapted for defense than for attack ; the
enemy's positions were strong and well chosen, and the
earthworks and block houses were rendered more effective
by barbed wire fences, so placed as to delay our troops at
points where they would be under the direct fire of the
enemy, who knew the range, and were themselves unseen.
Three things were imperative for the attacking force : thor-
ough knowledge of the ground ; a leader who could control
and co-ordinate all movements ; and abundance of both
heavy and light artillery, to prepare the way for the charges
of the infantry. None of these conditions were present; the
ground was almost entirely unknown ; Shaf ter himself was
stricken with fever and compelled to remain in the rear
throughout the battle; and the heavy artillery was quite
wanting, though some batteries of light artillery, which
proved ineffective against the earthworks and block houses,
were got into position. The burden of the battle was there-
fore thrown upon the infantry, and our victory was due to
their extraordinary courage and intelligence, and to the
heroic leadership of some of the regimental commanders.
It was a battle of soldiers, captains and colonels, not of gen-
erals ; and probably no soldiers in the world, under the condi-
tions, could have acquitted themselves so brilliantly as did
our regulars during those trying and exhausting days; and
the volunteer regiments caught inspiration from them, and
in the desperate charge up San Juan Hill men of the 71st
New York kept side by side with the regulars and fully
shared their glory. Nor were the Eough Riders ever found
wanting ; their dash and daring were worthy of their lead-
ers, Wood and Roosevelt, who exposed themselves with per-
fect gallantry wherever danger was sorest. But it was a
military error to send our men forward to carry positions
which had not previously been shelled by heavy artillery;

WAR WITH SPAIN 1115

and the losses of the battle — over fifteen hundred— might
have been almost entirely avoided had a leader of greater
experience and discretion directed affairs. It must be re-
membered, however, that the rainy season had began, and
that the roads, always rough and difficult, were rendered
immeasurably worse by the deluge of water which was
daily poured upon them, and by the constant passage of
large bodies of men. In war, an initial mistake or misfort-
une is apt to produce others; and there is no doubt that
the delay in getting the men off from Tampa was in a
great degree responsible for the calamities that afterward
occurred. Had we begun active preparations a week or
two earlier, the capture of Santiago might have been
effected at the date on which its siege actually began;
and not only would the movement of siege trains have
been easier, but the army might have been saved from the
fever which overtook it before arrangements could be made
to remove it from the island. Were the campaign to be
made over again, the experience gained through our errors
and oversights would cause it to be conducted in a very
different manner.

The disposition of our army was as follows: — It was
technically known as the Fifth Army Corps, consisting of
infantry, cavalry (unmounted), and light and heavy artil-
lery. The infantry was in two divisions; the cavalry in
two brigades; and there were two brigades of light artil-
lery and four of heavy artillery, which last could not be
made effective in season for the attack. Of the infantry,
the first division under General Kent occupied the center of
our line; it comprised Hawkins's, Pearson's and Wikoff's
brigades — eight regular regiments and one (the 71st New
York) of volunteers. General Lawton commanded the sec-
ond division on our right, made up of Chaffee's, Ludlow's
and Colonel Miles 's brigades — eight regular regiments and
one (the 2d Massachusetts) volunteer. Our left, whose duty
it was to attack Aguadores, was commanded by General

iu6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Duffield, and consisted of two Michigan volunteer regiments
and two thousand Cubans. The cavalry was under the
orders of the veteran General Wheeler, Sumner and Young
being the brigade commanders, but Young was incapac-
itated by illness. Sumner's brigade was all regulars;
Young's contained two regular and one volunteer regi-
ments—the latter being Roosevelt's Rough Riders. The
army, it will be seen, had twenty-one regular and five vol-
unteer regiments — an unusual preponderance of the former
arm of the service. As to the volunteers, it should be men-
tioned that the authorities had made the singular mistake of
arming them with old-fashioned Springfield rifles, which car-
ried scarce half as far as the enemy's Mausers, and burned
ordinary black powder, which made a smoke that afforded
an excellent indication of their position to the Spaniards.
Thus they were not only in constant peril themselves, but
to the regulars fighting beside them as well. More than
once, owing to this cause, they were ordered to cease firing;
and it was partly owing to this that the confusion occurred
in the 71st Regiment to which further allusion will be made
presently. In addition to other embarrassing circumstances
attending our advance, was the fact that Spanish sharp-
shooters, with smokeless powder, were posted in tall and
thick-foliaged trees all along our route, and even occasion-
ally in our rear ; these men did great execution, and fired
constantly upon the wounded, and upon the litters in which
they were being taken to the rear, and upon the surgeons
and Red Cross officers engaged in tending them. The
Spaniards, as has been said, proved themselves not alto-
gether despicable as fighters; but from the blowing up of
the " Maine" to the end of the war, the conduct of Spanish
soldiers and sailors was consistently that of people beyond
the pale of decent civilization.

In spite of all obstacles, errors and drawbacks, the Span-
iards were forced to abandon all their positions, and with-
draw to the immediate defenses of Santiago itself. It might

WAR WITH SPAIN 1117

almost be said that our men fought each man for himself;
there was no united action, or comprehensive knowledge at
one point of what was doing at another. Wherever our
troops saw the enemy, they advanced to attack him, and
sooner or later drove him back. At the end of the fighting,
a general advance would have overwhelmed the dispirited
enemy and given Santiago into our hands ; but at this junc-
ture, which a brave and competent general would have seized
upon, Shafter so far misunderstood the situation that he
would have ordered a retreat along the whole line, had
he not been restrained by decisive orders from Washington.
A vast calamity was thus averted ; but one only less serious
was invited by the failure of the war department to order an
immediate advance. They directed him to demand the sur-
render of the city ; this led to prolonged delays, during which
our troops were compelled to remain in trenches, exposed to
the horrors of the tropic rainy season, half starved, owing
to the failure of the commissariat, and drinking water which
was full of the germs of death. The inevitable consequence
was the outbreak of an epidemic of yellow and typhoid fevers
which killed hundreds and shattered the health of thousands.
There was again delay in sending the sick and dying men
home; and when transport was at last provided, the ships
were so inadequate in furnishing and supplies that they be-
came veritable pest ships, and caused the death of many
who might otherwise have been saved. The responsibility
for these blunders has not been fixed ; but the blood of brave
men needlessly destroyed cries out to the nation, and will not
be silenced by evasions and prevarications.

Let us now consider the various reports of the battle,
which are by no means all compatible one with another, but
from which some facts may be elicited. The attack upon
Aguadores, on our left, was, as has been mentioned, with-
drawn, the positions being considered too strong ; it had been
designed to prepare the way for the attack and capture of
Morro, which had been shelled by the fleet, though without

n8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the effect of entirely silencing the guns. The failure, which
was afterward described as a feint, was, as it turned out, not
of vital importance, inasmuch as the Spanish fleet was de-
stroyed on the 3d of July, while attempting to escape from
the harbor ; and this led to the surrender of Santiago, with
all the surrounding defenses. Meanwhile, the movement of
our right and center was successful.

The battle began on July 1st, and continued three days.
On the right, the objective point was the heights of El
Caney, protected by earthworks and by a stone house or
fort. Our artillery was on a ridge facing it ; but the range
was known to the Spaniards, and our guns were not heavy
enough to drive them from their positions. In order to reach
the position with infantry, it was necessary to cross a river
under heavy fire, and ascend the opposite slope. With the
exception of the stone fort, the enemy's batteries were invis-
ible ; but their fire, from cannon, machine guns, and rifles,
was very heavy and destructive. During the shelling, the
infantry slowly advanced from point to point, fighting their
way on ; the quantity of ammunition expended on both sides
was great, but in this preliminary work the losses on our side
were the heavier. From four in the morning till two in the
afternoon the struggle continued; our extreme right was
held by Chaffee with the 7th, 17th and 12th infantry; down
in the low land to the south was Ludlow, with his ineffective
light battery of four guns. It was evident that the Spanish
could not be dislodged by shelling ; and when a force of our
men, under Clarke, had reached the foot of the hill on which
the stone fort stood, with its surrounding concealed earth-
works, Chaffee sent them the order to charge up the hill and
capture the positions at the point of the bayonet. And these
men, after ten continuous hours of the most exhausting kind
of fighting, prepared promptly to obey the command. It
was the turning point of the battle in this quarter; the last
moment of earth for many who were to take part in it. With
the taking of the stone fort, the left of the Spanish position

WAR WITH SPAIN 1119

would be turned, and its evacuation forced, including that
of the village of El Caney, from the stone houses of which a
fire had been all along maintained.

The charge was made in full view of both armies ; its suc-
cess seemed impossible. The grass was long and slippery;
the ropy vines coiled round the limbs of our men ; the thorny
branches of the tropic vegetation caught their garments and
tore their faces; the bullets and shells of the enemy beat
upon them in a continuous stream. The ascent was steep
and long. Glancing upward, as they struggled on, the men
could see only death flashing down on them from the crest
of the hill that was so far away. They were faint with heat,
thirst, hunger, and the long day of exertion, but they went
on. The Spaniards redoubled their fire, confident of sweep-
ing them back; but no: they still advanced. They were
so near now that their comrades in the rear with the bat-
teries feared to continue their fire, lest they kill them. It
seemed, to those who watched, that human endurance and
courage could do no more; the charge would be repulsed.
But even then, the men gathered themselves for a last
effort ; they forced their way on ; they were at the fence of
barbed wire that protected the outer trenches; they cut it
and tore it down, and leaped into the trenches. The first
man in was a war-correspondent, James Creelman ; he found
himself in a hideous pit of blood and death ; corpses stared
up at him with glassy eyes; wounded men crawled under
his feet, and held up their faltering hands in token of sur-
render. The others had fled. In poured our panting, vic-
torious troops; they swept over the breastworks that had
defied them so long, and on to the stone block-house. There
was none to oppose them now. In the fort were seven dead
men in one room ; the place was full of dead and wounded ;
the walls splashed with blood, the floor slippery with it ; and
there were four living men and an officer, who held up their
hands in supplication, expecting to be butchered, as they
would have butchered us had the situation been reversed.

ii20 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Passing round to the rear of the fort, Creelman found the
Spanish flag ; it was received with cheers, as well it might
be, for it had been hardly won. The 12th regulars, in par-
ticular, suffered severely. Following the charge, up came
Chaffee with the rest of his command, and occupied El
Caney. The Spaniards were flying headlong into Santiago ;
above the blood-bespattered town waved the Stars and
Stripes, and our victorious troops looked down at last into
the streets of the city, under the declining sun.

Meanwhile our center under General Kent had been
engaged all day in the attack on San Juan Hill. Grimes's
battery was in position on a height opposite San Juan before
seven in the morning; and Hawkins's brigade was near the
sugar-house at El Poso ; he was moving forward with the
First Brigade, when orders were received to allow the cavalry
to precede ; but the advance of the latter was seriously de-
layed, owing in part to the difficulty of fording the San Juan
River, and to the necessity of the men's ridding themselves
of their blanket rolls and other encumbrances. A large part
of the command was subjected to the enemy's fire at this
time, and their position was trying. Hawkins attempted to
turn their right, but the fire proved too heavy. A balloon,
sent up for observation purposes by Shaffer's orders, was
drawing the fire of the enemy upon the First Brigade; bul-
lets seemed to come from all directions, even from the rear,
where Spanish sharpshooters were posted in the tall trees.
At this juncture the existence of a narrow trail leading
across the river on the left was discovered, and into this trail
the 71st Regiment of New York Volunteers was sent. The
dense tropical jungle impeded their movement; the fire of
Hi- enemy upon their van was severe, and the conduct
of some of the officers commanding them seems to have been
questionable. Contradictory orders were given ; the soldiers
were thrown into confusion, some having been directed to
retreat, others to conceal themselves in the jungle and cease
the advance. Tin- men were meanwhile dropping under the

WAR WITH SPAIN 1121

fire, and were in the agony of mind of brave men who desire
only to be led against the enemy, but have none to lead them.
While the men of the first battalion of the regiment were in
this predicament, the second and third battalions came up,
and moving in good order, went forward to the ford. Upon
their heels came the Third Brigade, but their way became
blocked by men of the first battalion of the 71st, who were
still without leaders, and several of whom